Installation

How to spell installation

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce installation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does installation mean?

1. nounThe act of fitting equipment, machinery, or software into position so it is ready for use.
2. nounA piece of equipment or a system that has been put in place and is treated as a permanent fixture.
3. nounA permanent military base or facility with its buildings and equipment.
4. nounA large three-dimensional artwork arranged within a space for viewers to walk through or around.

Installation in a sentence

• The boiler installation took the engineers most of the morning.

• The heating installation in the old office building needed a full upgrade.

• The reporters were barred from photographing the naval installation.

• The gallery devoted an entire room to her light and sound installation.

• The software installation failed because the disk was almost full.

• Every electrical installation in the factory passed the annual safety check.

Where does installation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Medieval Latin verb installare, which meant to place someone into an office or seat. It was formed from the prefix in-, meaning 'in' or 'into', and the noun stallum, meaning a stall or fixed seat, the very kind of seat a canon or official would be formally placed in within a cathedral. That stallum itself came from a Germanic root for a standing place or stable, the same family that gives English the everyday word 'stall'. English took the term in through Old French during the late Middle Ages, at first for the ceremonial act of putting a person into office, and only later widened it to cover the act of setting up equipment, machinery, or software and the resulting fixed arrangement. The double 'l' in 'install' and its survival into 'installation' is the spelling trap to watch, since the single 't' and the unstressed middle vowel make writers hesitate.

How the word is built

• in- (into, in place)
• stall (a place, fixed position, from Germanic stall)
• -ation (noun of action/result)