Dietary

How to spell dietary

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce dietary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dietary mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the food and drink a person habitually consumes, or to rules governing it.

Dietary in a sentence

• The airline asks passengers to declare any dietary restrictions in advance.

• Her doctor recommended several dietary changes to lower her cholesterol.

Where does dietary come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek diaita, which did not mean merely the food on your plate but a whole 'way of living' or prescribed regimen, including exercise and habits as well as eating. Roman physicians borrowed this as the Latin diaeta, and from it Medieval Latin formed diaetarius, meaning 'relating to a regulated way of eating'. English took 'diet' from Old French in the 1300s, and the adjective 'dietary' appeared a few centuries later to describe matters concerning what one eats. A useful spelling reminder is that 'dietary' is simply 'diet' plus '-ary', so the 'e' that follows the 'i' is the same 'e' you already write in 'diet'. The same Greek root underlies the related word 'dietitian', the professional who plans such regimens.

How the word is built

• diet- (from Greek diaita: way of living, regimen)
• -ary (adjective suffix, relating to)