Departmental

How to spell departmental

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce departmental

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does departmental mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or belonging to a department within an organisation, business, or government.

Departmental in a sentence

• The manager reviewed the departmental budget before the board meeting.

• Each team submitted a departmental report on its quarterly progress.

Where does departmental come from?

Language of origin: French

The word grows out of 'department', which English took from the French departement in the 1600s, originally meaning a division or a portion that has been set apart. That French noun comes from the verb departir, 'to divide' or 'to separate', which itself traces back through Old French to the Latin partire, meaning 'to share out' or 'to split into parts', built on pars, 'a part'. The prefix de- added a sense of marking something off or apportioning it. As large organisations and governments grew, 'department' came to name a distinct administrative division, and the adjective 'departmental' was formed in English by adding -al to describe anything belonging to or run by such a division. The shared root pars also sits inside everyday words like 'part', 'partition' and 'particle', and remembering 'part' in the middle is the surest way to keep the spelling steady.

How the word is built

• de- (down, away)
• part (from Latin partire, to divide)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)
• -al (adjective suffix)