Engagement

How to spell engagement

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce engagement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does engagement mean?

1. nounA formal agreement or promise to marry someone.
2. nounA fixed arrangement, appointment, or commitment to be somewhere or do something.
3. nounA battle or armed conflict between opposing forces.
4. nounThe degree of attention, interest, or active participation that people give to something.

Engagement in a sentence

• They announced their engagement at the family dinner.

• A prior engagement prevented her from attending the meeting.

• The brief engagement left several vehicles damaged near the border.

• The marketing team measured engagement across each social media post.

• She wore the engagement ring on her left hand.

• The speaker had a busy schedule of public engagement that week.

Where does engagement come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the early 1600s from the French engagement, a noun built on the verb engager, which meant to pledge or to bind by a promise. The heart of it is the Old French gage, meaning a pledge, security, or pawn, the same root that gives us the words gauge and wage. So to engage someone literally meant to put them under pledge, and an engagement was the state of being bound by a promise. From this came the sense of a binding promise to marry, the sense of a fixed appointment or commitment, and even the military sense of armies that have committed to fighting each other. The spelling keeps the French shape intact: the silent ge at the centre and the -ment ending are exactly what trip up writers, who often want to insert a stray letter or drop the e before -ment.

How the word is built

• en- (to make, put into)
• gage (a pledge or pawn)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix denoting a result or action)