Filtration

How to spell filtration

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce filtration

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does filtration mean?

1. nounThe process of passing a liquid or gas through a material that removes solid particles or impurities.

Filtration in a sentence

• The new filtration system removes sediment from the tap water.

• Proper filtration keeps the aquarium clear and the fish healthy.

Where does filtration come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Medieval Latin verb filtrare, meaning 'to strain through felt', which was built on the noun filtrum, the word for a piece of felt or matted wool. Felt was the original straining material: liquid would be poured through it so that solid particles were left behind, which is exactly the sense the word still carries. From filtrare came the Latin noun of action filtratio, and this passed into French and then into English in the seventeenth century as a scientific and technical term. The same filtrum root sits behind the everyday word 'filter' itself, which is a useful memory hook, since 'filtration' is simply 'filter' with the Latin-style ending restored. The spelling trap is the unstressed second syllable: it is filtr-ATION, keeping the 'r' before the 'a', not 'filteration'.

How the word is built

• filtr- (from Latin filtrum: a felt cloth used for straining)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix denoting a process or action)