Evaluating

How to spell evaluating

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce evaluating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does evaluating mean?

1. verbCarefully judging the value, quality or significance of something.

Evaluating in a sentence

• The panel is evaluating every application before the interviews begin.

• She spent the afternoon evaluating the costs of the two suppliers.

Where does evaluating come from?

Language of origin: French

The base verb evaluate traces back through the French evaluer, meaning 'to find the value of', which was built from the prefix e- (a form of ex-, 'out') and value. The word value itself descends from the Latin valere, which literally meant 'to be strong' or 'to be worth', the same root that gives us valiant, valid and valour. By the nineteenth century English had borrowed evaluate as a slightly technical term for working out the numerical value of something, especially in mathematics, before it broadened into the everyday sense of judging worth or quality. The present participle evaluating simply adds the -ing ending, and the spelling trap lives in the middle: the word keeps the full value (v-a-l-u) before the -ate, so the often-silent u must not be dropped. Remembering that you are working out the value of something keeps that u firmly in place.

How the word is built

• e- (variant of ex-: out, from)
• valu (from value: worth)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle)