Inclusion

How to spell inclusion

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce inclusion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inclusion mean?

1. nounThe act of including something or someone, or the state of being included within a group, set, or whole.

Inclusion in a sentence

• The committee voted for the inclusion of two new categories in the report.

• The company's diversity and inclusion policy aims to welcome staff from every background.

Where does inclusion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin inclusio, a noun built on the verb includere, meaning 'to shut in' or 'to enclose'. That verb joins the prefix in-, meaning 'in' or 'into', with claudere, the verb 'to shut or close', so the literal idea is of something being closed up inside something else. The same claudere root, which softens to clus before the noun ending, also gives English a whole family of relatives such as 'conclude', 'exclude', 'seclude' and 'recluse', all carrying the sense of shutting. English took up inclusion in the early seventeenth century, first for the plain physical act of containing something within a boundary. Over time it broadened to the social and organisational sense now common, the practice of making sure people are brought in rather than left out. Remembering that the middle comes from clus, not clud, helps fix the -sion spelling rather than a stray -tion.

How the word is built

• in- (in, into)
• clud/clus (from Latin claudere: to shut or close)
• -ion (noun of action or state)