Favoring

How to spell favoring

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce favoring

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does favoring mean?

1. verbShowing preference for, supporting, or treating one person or option more kindly than another.

Favoring in a sentence

• The new tax policy appears to be favoring large corporations over small businesses.

• The referee faced complaints for favoring the home team throughout the match.

Where does favoring come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin noun favor, which meant 'goodwill', 'support', or 'kindness', and was itself tied to the verb favere, meaning 'to be well disposed toward' or 'to show kindness to'. English took the word in through Old French, where it appeared as favour, around the 1300s, first as a noun for approval or kindly regard and soon as a verb meaning to show preference or support. The American spelling 'favoring' drops the 'u' that British and Canadian writers keep in 'favouring', a difference that goes back to Noah Webster's nineteenth-century push to simplify American spelling by trimming the French-styled '-our' ending down to '-or'. The same Latin favere also gives us 'favourite' (or 'favorite') and the slightly old-fashioned 'favourable'. For spellers, the trap is purely the missing 'u': in American usage it is f-a-v-o-r, never f-a-v-o-u-r.

How the word is built

• favor (from Latin favor: goodwill, kindness)
• -ing (present participle suffix)

British and American spelling

Favoring is the American spelling. British English spells it favouring.