Documentary

How to spell documentary

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce documentary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does documentary mean?

1. nounA film or television programme that presents factual information about real events, people, or subjects.
2. adjectiveConsisting of or based on official documents and factual records.

Documentary in a sentence

• noun

  The streaming service released a three-part documentary about the financial crash.

• adjective

  The lawyer relied on documentary evidence rather than witness statements.

• noun

  She spent two years filming a wildlife documentary in the rainforest.

• adjective

  The museum holds a rich documentary record of the town's early industry.

Where does documentary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin documentum, which meant 'a lesson, an example, or a piece of proof', and was itself formed from the verb docere, meaning 'to teach'. The same teaching root survives in everyday words such as 'doctor' (originally a learned teacher) and 'doctrine'. By the medieval period documentum had narrowed in Latin and French to mean an official written record, the sense behind the English noun 'document'. The adjective 'documentary' appeared in English in the early 1800s to describe something based on or consisting of documents and evidence. Its now-familiar association with factual film took hold in the 1920s, when the form was praised for treating real events with the seriousness of recorded fact. The tricky spelling keeps the -ment- of 'document' intact and then adds -ary, which is the same ending that catches people in 'necessary' and 'secretary'.

How the word is built

• docu- (from Latin documentum: lesson, proof, from docere 'to teach')
• -ment (result/instrument suffix)
• -ary (relating to)