Distribution

How to spell distribution

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce distribution

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does distribution mean?

1. nounThe act of sharing something out among people, or the way something is spread across an area.
2. nounIn statistics, the pattern showing how often each value of a variable occurs.

Distribution in a sentence

• The charity managed the distribution of food parcels to every household.

• The test scores followed a normal distribution around the average.

• The company handles the distribution of its products to shops nationwide.

• The analyst plotted the distribution of customer ages on a chart.

Where does distribution come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb distribuere, meaning 'to divide up' or 'to deal out', which was formed from the prefix dis- ('apart' or 'in different directions') and tribuere ('to allot, assign, or grant'). That root tribuere is itself connected to tribus, the word for a Roman 'tribe', because shares and duties were originally parceled out among the tribes. The action noun distributio described the orderly dividing of something among recipients. English took the word in the late 1300s through Old French distribution, keeping the Latin spelling almost intact. The same tribuere root survives in the everyday relatives 'tribute', 'contribute', and 'attribute', and remembering that family helps fix the single 't' followed by 'ibu' that often trips writers up.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, in different directions)
• tribu(t) (from tribuere: to allot, assign)
• -tion (noun of action)