Expertise

How to spell expertise

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce expertise

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does expertise mean?

1. nounExpert skill or specialised knowledge in a particular field.

Expertise in a sentence

• The surgeon's expertise reassured the anxious family before the operation.

• We hired the consultant for her expertise in tax law.

Where does expertise come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes from French, where expertise meant 'expert appraisal' or 'skilled judgement', built on the adjective expert. That adjective traces back to the Latin expertus, the past participle of experiri, meaning 'to try' or 'to put to the test'; the same root gives us 'experience' and 'experiment', because all of them grew from the idea of knowledge gained through trial. English borrowed the older word 'expert' in the late Middle Ages, but the abstract noun expertise arrived much later, in the nineteenth century, lifted directly from modern French. Because it kept its French dressing, the ending is spelled -ise and sounds like 'eez', which is precisely the trap: writers may want to spell it -ize or finish it like the everyday word 'expert'. Holding the French shape in mind, the silent finish that rhymes with 'tease', helps fix the correct letters.

How the word is built

• expert (skilled, from Latin expertus 'tried, tested')
• -ise (French noun suffix forming an abstract quality)