Dissent

How to spell dissent

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dissent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dissent mean?

1. nounStrong disagreement with a prevailing opinion, policy, or official decision.
2. verbTo hold or express an opinion that differs from a commonly or officially held view.

Dissent in a sentence

• noun

  The board approved the merger with only one voice of dissent.

• verb

  Two members of the committee chose to dissent from the unanimous recommendation.

• noun

  The judge wrote a lengthy dissent explaining why she disagreed with the majority ruling.

• verb

  Employees who dissent openly were invited to share their concerns at the meeting.

Where does dissent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin verb dissentire, which combined dis-, meaning 'apart' or 'in a different direction', with sentire, meaning 'to feel' or 'to think'. The literal sense was therefore 'to feel apart from others', that is, to hold a contrary opinion. English borrowed it in the fifteenth century, at first chiefly in religious and political contexts where one party refused to agree with an established doctrine or authority. The same sentire root underlies a whole family of familiar English words, including 'consent' (to feel together with), 'sentiment', and 'sense', which is a useful memory hook: dissent shares its ending with consent, and is spelled with -sent, not -scent or -cent. The trap is its homophone 'descent', the act of going down or one's ancestry, which sounds identical but carries a quite different meaning and spelling.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, differently)
• sent (from sentire: to feel or think) +

Words that sound like dissent

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• descent: The action of moving or sloping downward from a higher position.