Duration

How to spell duration

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce duration

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does duration mean?

1. nounThe length of time that something lasts or continues.

Duration in a sentence

• The contract sets out the full duration of the lease.

• Battery life depends on the duration of each charging cycle.

Where does duration come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin verb durare, meaning 'to last, to harden, to hold out', which was itself built on the adjective durus, meaning 'hard'. From durare, Latin formed the noun duratio for a continuing or lasting state, and this passed into English in the late fourteenth century, partly through Old French. The underlying idea was that something durable could endure and stay hard or firm over time, so 'duration' came to mean simply the length of time something continues. The same durus root is still visible in the everyday relatives 'durable', 'endure', and 'during'. Remembering that family helps with the spelling: it is dur (as in durable), not 'der', that opens the word.

How the word is built

• dur- (from Latin durare: to last, endure)
• -ation (noun of action/state)