Forgetting

How to spell forgetting

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce forgetting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does forgetting mean?

1. verbFailing to remember something, or ceasing to keep it in mind.

Forgetting in a sentence

• She kept forgetting her colleague's birthday every single year.

• He has a habit of forgetting where he parked the car.

Where does forgetting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of 'forget', which descends directly from the Old English 'forgietan', meaning 'to lose one's grip on something in the mind'. The verb was built from the prefix 'for-', carrying a sense of 'away' or 'amiss', joined to 'gietan', meaning 'to grasp' or 'to get hold of', so the literal idea was that a thought slips out of your hold. The same 'get' root sits inside the everyday verb 'get' and its Old Norse-influenced relatives, which is why the family resemblance is so strong. The doubling of the final 't' when adding '-ing' follows the regular English rule for a short, stressed final syllable ending in a single consonant, the same pattern seen in 'setting' and 'getting'. That doubled 't' is precisely the spot where writers hesitate, since the silent doubling is invisible once the word is spoken.

How the word is built

• for- (away, amiss)
• get (to grasp, hold)
• -t- (doubled consonant before suffix)
• -ing (present participle)