Elasticity

How to spell elasticity

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce elasticity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does elasticity mean?

1. nounThe property of a material that lets it return to its original shape after being stretched or compressed.
2. nounA measure of how strongly demand or supply responds to a change in price or income.

Elasticity in a sentence

• The elasticity of the rubber seal lets it spring back after the door closes.

• The report measured the price elasticity of demand for petrol.

• As skin ages it loses some of its natural elasticity.

• Luxury goods tend to show high elasticity because buyers cut back when prices rise.

Where does elasticity come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek verb elaunein, meaning 'to drive, push, or set in motion'. From a related form scientists of the seventeenth century coined the Modern Latin adjective elasticus to describe a substance that springs back after being driven or pushed out of shape. English took up 'elastic' in the 1650s, originally in discussions of the 'elastic' air or gas that expands to fill a space, before the meaning settled on materials that return to their original form. The abstract noun 'elasticity' was then formed in English by adding the quality-forming suffix -ity, much as 'simple' yields 'simplicity'. Economists of the late nineteenth century borrowed the term as a vivid metaphor for how demand or supply stretches in response to price. The spelling trap lies in the unstressed middle, where the stressed -tic of 'elastic' softens to a quiet -ti- before -city.

How the word is built

• elast- (from Greek elastikos: springing back)
• -ic (adjective)
• -ity (noun of quality)