Globalization

How to spell globalization

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce globalization

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does globalization mean?

1. nounThe process by which businesses, cultures, and economies become connected and operate on a worldwide scale.

Globalization in a sentence

• The rise of cheap shipping accelerated economic globalization.

• Her thesis examines how globalization reshaped local manufacturing.

Where does globalization come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base of this word is the Latin globus, which literally meant a round mass, a ball, or a sphere; the same root gave English the everyday word 'globe'. From 'globe' English formed the adjective 'global', meaning 'covering the whole earth', and then the verb 'globalize', built with the productive ending -ize that descends ultimately from the Greek verb-forming element -izein. Adding -ation, the standard suffix for naming a process or action, produced 'globalization', the process of making something operate worldwide. The word is a relatively young one: it appears in economic and political writing through the middle of the twentieth century and became extremely common from the 1980s onward as trade, finance, and communication spread across borders. The long chain of suffixes is exactly what makes the spelling fiddly, since each unstressed vowel between the syllables collapses into a faint schwa when spoken.

How the word is built

• glob- (from Latin globus: ball, sphere)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ize (verb suffix, from Greek -izein)
• -ation (noun of action/process)

British and American spelling

Globalization is the American spelling. British English spells it globalisation.