Dedication

How to spell dedication

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce dedication

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dedication mean?

1. nounThe quality of being committed to a task, purpose, or person, often through hard work and persistence.
2. nounA short message at the front of a book or work naming the person to whom it is offered.

Dedication in a sentence

• Her dedication to the project impressed the whole management team.

• The novel opens with a touching dedication to the author's late mother.

• Becoming fluent in a language takes years of patient dedication.

• He scribbled a personal dedication inside the cover before posting the gift.

Where does dedication come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Dedication descends from the Latin verb dedicare, formed from de- meaning 'completely' and dicare meaning 'to proclaim, declare, or set apart by solemn announcement'. In Roman use, to dedicare a temple or altar was to formally proclaim it consecrated to a god, so the original flavour was one of a public, almost ceremonial pledge. The noun dedicatio followed, naming that act of consecration, and English took the word in through Old French during the late Middle Ages, around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Over time the religious sense of setting something apart broadened into two everyday meanings: the inscription by which an author offers a book to someone, and the personal devotion of giving yourself wholly to a cause or task. The root dic, meaning 'to say or declare', also lies behind relatives such as 'dictate' and 'predict', and it is the single c in that root, plus the unstressed schwa-heavy ending, that trip writers up.

How the word is built

• de- (completely)
• dic (declare/proclaim, from Latin dicare)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)