Depending

How to spell depending

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce depending

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does depending mean?

1. verbBeing conditioned by or relying on something else as a deciding factor.

Depending in a sentence

• Depending on the weather, the outdoor ceremony may be moved indoors.

• The final invoice varies, depending on how many hours the job takes.

Where does depending come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin verb dependere, which literally meant 'to hang down' or 'to hang from', formed from the prefix de- meaning 'down, from' and pendere meaning 'to hang'. The idea of one thing hanging from another shifted naturally into the figurative sense of relying on or being conditioned by something else, much as we still picture support 'hanging on' a single thread. English took the verb through Old French dependre in the late 1300s and 1400s, and the present participle 'depending' followed straightforwardly. The same pendere root hangs inside a whole family of relatives, including 'pendant', 'pending', 'suspend', and 'pendulum', all of which keep the literal hanging image. Knowing that the middle of the word is the root pend, not 'pen', helps fix the spelling.

How the word is built

• de- (down, from)
• pend (to hang)
• -ing (present participle)