Institutionalized

How to spell institutionalized

17 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce institutionalized

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does institutionalized mean?

1. verbPlaced in a residential institution such as a hospital, care home, or psychiatric facility for long-term treatment or custody.
2. verbEstablished a custom, attitude, or arrangement as a permanent, accepted part of an organisation or society.

Institutionalized in a sentence

• After years of declining health, her grandfather was institutionalized in a nursing facility.

• The company has institutionalized flexible working as a standard part of every contract.

• The court ruled that the patient should be institutionalized rather than imprisoned.

• The report warned that bias had become institutionalized across the entire hiring process.

Where does institutionalized come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This long word is built up in stages from the Latin verb instituere, which meant 'to set up, arrange, or establish', formed from in- ('in, into') and statuere ('to set or place'), itself from status ('a standing or condition'). From instituere came the noun institutio, 'an arrangement or custom', which passed through Old French and entered English in the late Middle Ages as 'institution', meaning an established practice and later an established organisation such as a hospital or asylum. The adjective 'institutional' followed, and in the nineteenth century the verb 'institutionalize' was coined by adding the productive -ize ending, first in the sense of making something into a fixed custom and soon afterwards in the sense of confining a person within an institution. The clustered, repeated letters that trip writers up all reflect that layered construction: the -tit- of the Latin root, the -tion- noun layer, and the -aliz- adjective-into-verb layers stacked one after another. Recognising those building blocks is the surest way to spell the whole chain correctly.

How the word is built

• in- (in, into)
• -stitut- (from Latin statuere, to set up or establish)
• -ion (noun)
• -al (adjective)
• -ize (verb-forming)
• -ed (past tense)

British and American spelling

Institutionalized is the American spelling. British English spells it institutionalised.