Function

How to spell function

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce function

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does function mean?

1. nounThe natural purpose or proper activity that something is designed to perform.
2. verbTo work or operate in a proper or expected way.
3. nounA formal or organised social gathering, such as a reception or party.

Function in a sentence

• noun

  The main function of the kidneys is to filter waste from the blood.

• verb

  The heater will not function without a fresh battery.

• noun

  The hotel hosts a corporate function in its main ballroom every Friday.

• noun

  Each button on the remote has a different function.

• verb

  The old software can still function on modern computers.

• noun

  She catered a wedding function for over two hundred guests.

Where does function come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin functio, meaning 'a performing' or 'an execution', which was built on the verb fungi, meaning 'to perform, discharge, or carry out'. English took the word in through French during the 1500s, where it first described the proper activity or duty belonging to a person or office. From that sense of 'the work something is meant to do', it spread into mathematics in the 1600s for a quantity that depends on another, and into everyday speech for a formal social gathering. The buried letters are the trap: the spelling keeps the original 'funct' root intact even though we say it as 'funk', so the silent path runs funct plus the very common -ion ending. The same fungi root still surfaces in 'defunct', meaning something that has stopped performing altogether.

How the word is built

• funct- (from fungi: to perform, execute)
• -ion (noun suffix)