Evaluate

How to spell evaluate

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce evaluate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does evaluate mean?

1. verbTo judge or determine the worth, quality, or significance of something after careful consideration.

Evaluate in a sentence

• The committee will evaluate each candidate against the same criteria.

• Managers meet every quarter to evaluate the team's performance.

Where does evaluate come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes ultimately from the Latin verb valere, which meant 'to be strong' or 'to be worth', the same root that gives us 'value', 'valid' and 'valour'. The modern form arrived through French évaluer, built from the prefix é- (an old form of Latin ex-, meaning 'out') joined to value, so the literal idea was to draw out or work out the worth of something. English adopted it in the early nineteenth century, at first largely in mathematical writing where to evaluate an expression meant to find its numerical value. From that technical sense it broadened into the general meaning of judging the quality, amount or significance of anything. Remembering that 'value' sits whole inside the middle of the word, with no extra letters, is the simplest guard against misspelling it.

How the word is built

• e- (from Latin ex-, out)
• valu (from Latin valere, to be worth)
• -ate (verb suffix)