Discipline

How to spell discipline

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce discipline

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does discipline mean?

1. nounControlled, orderly behaviour produced by training or self-control.
2. nounA particular branch of knowledge or area of academic study.
3. verbTo train someone to obey rules, or to punish them for breaking rules.

Discipline in a sentence

• noun

  Saving regularly takes real discipline and patience.

• noun

  Economics is a discipline that blends maths with human behaviour.

• verb

  The manager had to discipline a worker for repeated lateness.

• noun

  The team owed its success to hard work and discipline.

• noun

  She trained across several scientific discipline before specialising.

• verb

  Parents who discipline calmly tend to raise steadier children.

Where does discipline come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Discipline comes from the Latin disciplina, which meant 'instruction', 'training', or 'a branch of knowledge'. That noun was built on discipulus, meaning 'a pupil' or 'a learner', which in turn traces back to the verb discere, 'to learn'. English took the word in through Old French in the 1200s, at first largely in religious contexts, where it described the mortification and self-control imposed on followers, before it broadened to mean orderly conduct, training, and fields of study. The hidden 'sci' in the middle is the spelling trap, and it is no accident: it preserves the Latin disci- of discipulus, the same root that gives us 'disciple'. Remembering that a disciple is a learner makes the otherwise silent-seeming 'sci' easy to place correctly.

How the word is built

• disciplin- (from Latin disciplina: instruction, training)
• -e