Courtship

How to spell courtship

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce courtship

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does courtship mean?

1. nounThe period or activity of seeking someone's affection, typically with a view to marriage.

Courtship in a sentence

• Their courtship lasted two years before they married.

• The old letters described a slow and formal courtship.

Where does courtship come from?

Language of origin: French

The word joins the verb 'court' to the old English suffix '-ship', which marks a state, condition, or activity. 'Court' itself reached English through Old French 'cort' from the Latin 'cohors', a word that originally meant an enclosed yard and later the retinue gathered around a ruler. Because a royal or noble court was where suitors gathered to win favour, 'to court' came to mean 'to seek the affection of', and by the late 1500s 'courtship' described the period of wooing before marriage. The suffix '-ship', the same one in 'friendship' and 'hardship', comes from Old English '-scipe' meaning 'shape' or 'condition', so the word literally names the condition of courting. Remembering that it is simply 'court' plus 'ship', with no letter dropped at the join, keeps the spelling steady.

How the word is built

• court (to woo, from the noun court)
• -ship (state or condition, native suffix)