Enrolling

How to spell enrolling

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce enrolling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does enrolling mean?

1. verbOfficially registering yourself or another person on a course, list, or scheme.

Enrolling in a sentence

• She is enrolling her daughter in the local primary school.

• The university makes enrolling in evening classes simple and quick.

Where does enrolling come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the medieval practice of recording names on a rolled-up sheet of parchment. It comes from the Old French enroller, formed from en-, meaning 'to put into', and rolle, meaning a roll or scroll of parchment. That rolle in turn descends from the Latin rotulus, a little wheel or cylinder, from rota, meaning 'wheel', because a long document was literally rolled around a stick for storage. English borrowed the word in the late 1300s, when to enrol someone meant to write their name onto an official register or list. The modern sense of signing up for a course, a club, or a scheme grew directly out of that image of adding a name to the official roll, and the doubled l in 'enrolling' is a useful reminder that the root really is the word 'roll'.

How the word is built

• en- (to put into)
• roll (a register or scroll)
• -ing (present participle)