Elevation

How to spell elevation

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce elevation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does elevation mean?

1. nounThe height of a place or object above a fixed point, especially above sea level.
2. nounThe act of raising something to a higher position, level, or rank.
3. nounA scale drawing showing one vertical face of a building, viewed straight on.

Elevation in a sentence

• The village sits at an elevation of nearly two thousand metres.

• Her elevation to chief executive surprised the whole board.

• The architect submitted the front elevation along with the floor plans.

• Hikers often feel short of breath at high elevation.

• The physiotherapist recommended elevation of the injured leg to reduce swelling.

• The rear elevation shows the position of every window.

Where does elevation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb elevare, meaning 'to lift up' or 'to raise', which was formed from the prefix e- (a reduced form of ex, meaning 'out' or 'up') joined to levare, 'to lighten or raise'. The root of levare is levis, the Latin word for 'light' in weight, so the original idea is literally that of making something rise by lessening what holds it down; that same root surfaces in everyday relatives such as 'lever', 'levity', and 'relieve'. From elevare came the Latin noun elevatio, 'a lifting up', and English borrowed the word through Old French around the late 1300s and early 1400s. At first it carried senses of raising in rank or spirit, and the concrete sense of physical height, such as height above sea level, grew more prominent later. The spelling stays close to the Latin: the unstressed middle vowel writes as -e- (lev), which is the spot most likely to be misjudged when sounding the word out.

How the word is built

• e- (out, up, from Latin ex)
• lev (to raise, from levare)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)