Electorate

How to spell electorate

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce electorate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does electorate mean?

1. nounThe body of people entitled to vote in an election.
2. nounA geographical area whose voters elect a representative.

Electorate in a sentence

• The party lost the trust of the electorate after the scandal.

• She has represented this rural electorate for over a decade.

• A large share of the electorate stayed home on polling day.

• Boundary changes redrew the lines of the coastal electorate.

Where does electorate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb eligere, meaning 'to pick out' or 'to choose', formed from e- 'out' and legere 'to gather, select'. Its past participle electus gave English 'elect', and from there the agent noun 'elector', a person who chooses, especially in a vote. The suffix -ate here works as a collective marker, turning the individual elector into 'electorate', the whole body of people entitled to vote. English settled on this collective sense in the early nineteenth century as representative voting expanded. The same legere root quietly underlies a surprising family of words, including 'select', 'eligible', and even 'lecture', all of which carry a buried idea of choosing or reading out, and noticing that hidden 'elect' inside the word helps fix the spelling.

How the word is built

• elect- (from Latin eligere, to pick out or choose)
• -or (agent: one who chooses)
• -ate (collective suffix forming a body or group)