Delivery

How to spell delivery

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce delivery

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does delivery mean?

1. nounThe act of carrying and handing over goods, mail, or a parcel to a recipient.
2. nounThe process of giving birth to a baby.
3. nounThe style or manner in which a speaker performs a speech or lines.

Delivery in a sentence

• The furniture store offers free delivery on large orders.

• The midwife stayed with her throughout the long delivery.

• Her calm delivery kept the audience focused during the presentation.

• The courier left a note because nobody was home to accept the delivery.

• The hospital has a dedicated ward for labour and delivery.

• The comedian's deadpan delivery made the joke land perfectly.

Where does delivery come from?

Language of origin: French

Delivery descends from the Old French verb delivrer, meaning 'to set free' or 'to hand over', which was built from the Latin liberare, 'to set free', itself from liber meaning 'free'. The literal idea was of releasing something or someone from your hold and passing it into the keeping of another, an image that still underlies the modern sense of handing over goods. English took the verb deliver in the 1300s, and the noun delivery followed, broadening over time to cover everything from parcels left at a door to the act of giving birth and the manner in which a speaker performs a line. The same liber root gives us 'liberty' and 'liberate', a useful reminder that to deliver something is in a sense to free it from yourself. The spelling keeps the single l of liber and the single v, which is the main trap, since writers sometimes hesitate over whether any letter is doubled.

How the word is built

• de- (away, from)
• liver (from Latin liberare: to set free)
• -y (noun suffix)