Insure

How to spell insure

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce insure

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does insure mean?

1. verbTo protect property, a life, or a risk by paying premiums to a company that will compensate any loss.

Insure in a sentence

• The broker advised us to insure the cottage against flooding.

• It costs more to insure a sports car than a family hatchback.

Where does insure come from?

Language of origin: French

Insure began life as a spelling variant of 'ensure', both descending from the Old French verb enseurer, formed from en- 'make' and seur 'sure, safe'. That seur in turn came from the Latin securus, meaning 'free from care' (built from se- 'without' and cura 'care'), the same root that gives us 'secure' and 'sure' itself. For centuries 'insure' and 'ensure' were used interchangeably to mean 'to make certain', but from around the seventeenth century the spelling 'insure' settled onto the financial sense of guaranteeing money against loss, while 'ensure' kept the general meaning of making something certain. The opening vowel is the whole spelling trap: writers reach for 'en-' out of habit even when they want the money sense, because the two words sound nearly identical. Remembering that an Insurance policy and to Insure share the same 'i' helps keep them apart.

How the word is built

• in- (variant of en-: make, put into)
• sure (certain, secure, from Latin securus)