Disposal

How to spell disposal

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce disposal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disposal mean?

1. nounThe act or process of throwing away or getting rid of something.
2. nounThe ability to use or control something freely, often in the phrase 'at one's disposal'.

Disposal in a sentence

• The council provides separate bins for the disposal of food waste.

• The manager put a company car at her disposal for the duration of the project.

• Safe disposal of old batteries keeps harmful chemicals out of landfill.

• Every resource in the lab was at the team's disposal during the trial.

Where does disposal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Disposal is built on the verb 'dispose', which English took in the 1300s from the Old French 'disposer', meaning 'to arrange' or 'to set in order'. That word reflected the Latin 'disponere', formed from 'dis-' (apart, in different directions) and 'ponere' (to place or to put), so the literal sense was 'to place things separately' or 'to arrange'. From the idea of arranging matters as one sees fit grew the modern senses of controlling something and of getting rid of it. The noun 'disposal' was coined in English in the 1600s by adding the suffix '-al' to 'dispose'. The same 'ponere' root sits behind a large family of relatives, including 'position', 'compose', and 'deposit', which is a useful reminder that the middle of the word is spelled with an 's' giving a /z/ sound, not a 'z'.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, away)
• pos (from Latin ponere: to place)
• -al (noun-forming suffix)