Disconnect

How to spell disconnect

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce disconnect

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disconnect mean?

1. verbTo break the link or connection between two things, especially electrical, mechanical, or communications links.
2. nounA lack of agreement or connection between two things; a discrepancy or gap.

Disconnect in a sentence

• verb

  Remember to disconnect the charger before you unplug the router.

• noun

  There is a real disconnect between what the company promises and what it delivers.

• verb

  The engineer had to disconnect the gas supply before starting the repair.

• noun

  The survey revealed a disconnect between management goals and staff morale.

Where does disconnect come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The core of this word is the Latin verb nectere, which literally meant 'to bind, fasten, or tie together', and which also gives English words like 'connect', 'nexus', and 'annex'. English already had 'connect', formed from con- 'together' plus that nect root, by the 1600s. 'Disconnect' was then built on top of it by adding the prefix dis-, a reversing or undoing prefix borrowed through Latin, so the whole word literally means 'to undo the binding-together'. It appeared in English around the late 1700s, originally for severing physical links, and the modern noun sense of a mismatch or gap arose later. Knowing that the spelling hides two separate prefixes, dis- and con-, is the key to remembering both the single s and the single n before the nect.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, reverse)
• con- (together)
• nect (from Latin nectere: to bind or tie)