Description

How to spell description

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce description

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does description mean?

1. nounA spoken or written account that explains what something or someone is like.

Description in a sentence

• The police asked for a detailed description of the missing car.

• Each product on the website needs an accurate description before it goes on sale.

Where does description come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb describere, which combined the prefix de-, meaning 'down', with scribere, meaning 'to write', so it literally meant 'to write down' or to copy out in words. From that verb came the noun descriptio, the act of setting something down on the page or sketching it out, and English borrowed it through Old French as 'descripcioun' in the late 1300s. The 'script' core has stayed remarkably stable and still surfaces in close relatives such as 'script', 'scripture', 'manuscript' and 'transcribe', all of which involve writing. The most common modern spelling slip is to write the first syllable as 'dis' rather than 'de', because the unstressed vowel sounds like a short 'i'; remembering that it shares its 'de-' beginning with the verb 'describe' fixes that trap. The settled meaning, a written or spoken account that paints a picture of something, follows directly from that original sense of writing a thing down.

How the word is built

• de- (down)
• script (from Latin scribere: to write)
• -ion (noun suffix)