Dispatch

How to spell dispatch

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dispatch

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dispatch mean?

1. verbTo send someone or something off promptly to a particular destination or for a particular purpose.
2. nounAn official message or report, or the act of sending something off.

Dispatch in a sentence

• verb

  The warehouse will dispatch your order within two working days.

• noun

  The general read every dispatch from the front before issuing orders.

• verb

  Control rooms dispatch ambulances the moment a call comes in.

• noun

  The goods were prepared for dispatch on the same afternoon.

Where does dispatch come from?

Language of origin: Italian

This word came into English in the early 1500s, most likely borrowed from Italian dispacciare or the closely related Spanish despachar, both of which meant 'to send off in haste' or 'to settle a matter quickly'. The Romance forms trace back to a Latin idea of removing an obstacle or freeing something for movement, the opposite of impedire 'to entangle the feet', so the underlying sense is of clearing the way so a thing can speed off. From the beginning it carried two linked ideas: sending someone or something promptly, and dealing with business briskly, which is why a courier's bundle of urgent papers became a 'dispatch'. The grimmer sense of dispatching, meaning to kill quickly, grew from the same notion of finishing something off without delay. The spelling has long wavered between dispatch and the older British despatch, a variant said to have been fixed partly by an error in Samuel Johnson's dictionary, and the di- form is now the standard one to remember.

How the word is built

• dis- (away, off)
• patch (from Romance pacciare/pachar: to send, expedite)