Entries

How to spell entries

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce entries

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does entries mean?

1. nounItems written or recorded in a list, diary, ledger, or reference work.
2. nounThe items, people, or forms submitted to take part in a competition or contest.

Entries in a sentence

• The accountant reviewed all the ledger entries before closing the books.

• The judges had over five hundred entries to assess for the photography prize.

• Her diary contained brief entries for every day of the trip.

• Late entries for the marathon will not be accepted after Friday.

Where does entries come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the plural of 'entry', which came into English in the early 1300s from the Old French 'entree', meaning an act or right of entering. That French noun grew out of the Latin verb 'intrare', 'to go in' or 'to enter', which itself was built on 'intra', meaning 'within' or 'inside'. Over time the sense widened from the physical act of going in to the place of going in (a doorway or passage) and then to the figurative act of recording something, since to make an entry is to 'enter' a name, figure, or note into a register. The same Latin root sits behind the cooking term 'entree', once the dish that began a meal. The spelling trap in the plural is purely English mechanics: a noun ending in a consonant plus -y drops the y and adds -ies, so 'entry' becomes 'entries' rather than the tempting but wrong 'entrys'.

How the word is built

• entr- (from Latin intrare, to go in)
• -y (noun-forming suffix)
• -es (plural; the -y becomes -ies)