Envision

How to spell envision

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce envision

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does envision mean?

1. verbTo imagine or picture something, especially as a future possibility or plan.

Envision in a sentence

• The architects envision a glass atrium at the centre of the building.

• We envision a quieter retirement spent travelling and gardening.

Where does envision come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a comparatively modern coinage, built in the nineteenth century from the productive English prefix en-, meaning 'to put into' or 'to cause to be', attached to 'vision'. The root of vision is the Latin videre, meaning 'to see', whose past participle stem visus gave English a whole family of sight words including visible, vista, supervise and television. By adding en- to vision, writers created a verb meaning 'to picture in the mind' or 'to see something as a future possibility'. It appeared first in American English around the 1800s and runs parallel to the older British favourite 'envisage', which English took directly from French envisager. The spelling trap lies in the unstressed middle: the 'vis' is pronounced with a soft 'zh', so the silent logic of the Latin 'see' root is what fixes the s in place.

How the word is built

• en- (to make, put into)
• vis (from Latin videre/visus: to see)
• -ion (noun-forming, but here functioning as part of the verb stem)