File

How to spell file

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce file

What does file mean?

1. nounA collection of papers or a set of computer data kept together under one name.
2. verbTo place a document in storage or to formally submit it to an authority.
3. nounA hand tool with a rough surface used to grind, smooth, or shape metal, wood, or nails.
4. nounA line of people or things arranged one behind another.

File in a sentence

• noun

  She saved the report as a new file on the shared drive.

• verb

  You must file your tax return before the deadline.

• noun

  He used a fine file to smooth the rough edge of the key.

• noun

  The children walked into the hall in single file.

• noun

  The accountant pulled the client file from the cabinet.

• verb

  The clerk will file these records under the correct heading.

Where does file come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word actually braids together two distinct origins that ended up spelled the same way. The document sense comes from the Latin filum, meaning 'a thread', because clerks once kept loose papers in order by literally stringing them onto a wire or thread; that idea passed into French as filer 'to string documents' and reached English in the early 1500s, broadening to mean any orderly collection of papers and, much later, a stored set of data on a computer. The marching sense (as in 'single file') also traces to the same filum 'thread' by way of the French file, a row of soldiers strung out in a line. The metalworking tool, however, is unrelated: it descends from the Old English feol, a word of Germanic stock for the toothed implement used to grind and smooth. These separate threads converging on one spelling explain why 'file' covers such different ideas today.

How the word is built

• file (a single, indivisible root noun/verb; no prefix or suffix)