Hegemony

How to spell hegemony

8 letters · 4 syllables

5 of the 20 people asked to spell hegemony in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

How to pronounce hegemony

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hegemony mean?

1. nounLeadership or dominance of one state, group, or power over others.

Hegemony in a sentence

• The empire maintained its hegemony over neighbouring regions for centuries.

• Economists debated whether the country's financial hegemony was beginning to fade.

Where does hegemony come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from the Greek hegemonia, meaning 'leadership' or 'supremacy', which was built on hegemon, a 'leader' or 'guide'. That noun in turn came from the verb hegeisthai, which literally meant 'to lead' or 'to go before'. In ancient Greece the term described the dominant city-state that led an alliance, Athens or Sparta being the obvious examples, so the idea of one power steering the rest was baked in from the start. English borrowed it in the sixteenth century, first to describe political and military dominance of one nation over others, and later it spread to cultural and economic spheres too. The tricky spelling, with that 'g' followed by an 'e' and the soft, almost swallowed middle syllable, is a direct inheritance from the Greek root; remembering 'hegemon' as the underlying leader helps fix the order of the letters.

How the word is built

• hegemon- (from Greek hegemon: leader)
• -y (noun-forming suffix)