Impartial

How to spell impartial

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce impartial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does impartial mean?

1. adjectiveTreating all sides fairly and equally, without bias or favouritism.

Impartial in a sentence

• A judge must remain impartial throughout the entire trial.

• The committee appointed an impartial observer to oversee the vote count.

Where does impartial come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin pars, partis, meaning a 'part' or 'side', which also gave English everyday words like 'part', 'party' and 'partial'. The Latin partialis came to mean 'sharing in' or 'favouring one side', and English borrowed 'partial' through Old French in the late medieval period to describe someone biased toward a particular side. To express the opposite, English writers added the Latin negative prefix in-, which shifts to im- before the letter p, producing 'impartial' for a person who does not take any one side. The form was in use by the late 1500s, and the literal sense is satisfying: someone impartial refuses to play favourites with any single 'part'. The spelling trap lies in that doubled idea hidden in plain sight, the silent logic of im- plus partial, and in the -tial ending that sounds like 'shul' but is written -tial.

How the word is built

• im- (not)
• part (from Latin pars, partis: part or side)
• -ial (adjective suffix)