Eviction

How to spell eviction

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce eviction

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does eviction mean?

1. nounThe legal process of forcing a tenant or occupant to leave a property.

Eviction in a sentence

• The landlord began the eviction after three months of unpaid rent.

• A court order is usually required before an eviction can take place.

Where does eviction come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin verb evincere, which combined the prefix ex- meaning 'out' with vincere meaning 'to conquer' or 'to overcome', so the literal idea was to vanquish someone completely or to win something out of another's hands. The past participle of that verb was evictus, and from it Roman lawyers formed evictio, a precise legal term for recovering property through a court judgement. English took the word in the fifteenth century, at first in that strict legal sense of regaining goods or land by proving a superior claim. Over time it narrowed to the modern meaning most people know: the lawful removal of a tenant from a property. The same vincere root that lies hidden in eviction also gives us 'victory', 'convince', and 'invincible', and remembering that buried 'vict' (as in victor) helps fix the spelling rather than the tempting but wrong 'evics-' or 'evik-'.

How the word is built

• e- (out, from ex-)
• vict (from Latin vincere: to conquer, overcome)
• -ion (noun suffix)