Directories

How to spell directories

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce directories

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does directories mean?

1. nounBooks or lists that give names, addresses, telephone numbers, or other organised reference details.
2. nounNamed containers in a computer's file system that group and organise files.

Directories in a sentence

• The library keeps several old telephone directories on the bottom shelf.

• The backup script copies every file across all the project directories.

• Most business directories moved online once printed phone books fell out of use.

• He tidied the server by deleting empty directories left over from old installations.

Where does directories come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin directorium, a noun meaning 'a guide' or 'a thing that directs', which was built on directus, the past participle of dirigere 'to set straight, to guide'. That verb combined the prefix dis- 'apart' with regere 'to keep straight or rule', the same root that lies behind 'regent' and 'regular'. English took up 'directory' in the 1400s, first for a book of rules or guidance, before it settled into the modern sense of an alphabetical list of names, addresses and telephone numbers. In the twentieth century computing borrowed the term again for a named container that organises files. The plural simply follows the standard English rule of changing a final consonant-plus-y into -ies, which is the spelling step that most often trips writers, since the singular ends in a single y.

How the word is built

• direct- (from Latin directus: set straight, guided)
• -ory (place or thing that does)
• -ies (plural of -y)