Intercontinental

How to spell intercontinental

16 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce intercontinental

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does intercontinental mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or extending between two or more continents.

Intercontinental in a sentence

• The airline launched a new intercontinental route from London to Sydney.

• The treaty established intercontinental trade rules spanning Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Where does intercontinental come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from the Latin preposition inter, meaning 'between' or 'among', joined to 'continent' and the adjective ending -al. 'Continent' itself comes from the Latin phrase terra continens, literally 'continuous land' or 'land that holds together', from the verb continere, 'to hold together', formed from con- 'together' and tenere 'to hold'. So a continent was originally simply an unbroken stretch of land, and 'intercontinental' describes whatever passes between such land masses. The compound was assembled in English in the nineteenth century, when steamships and telegraph cables first made travel and communication between continents routine, and it became especially common in the twentieth century with intercontinental flights and missiles. The spelling trap lies in the quiet middle: the unstressed vowels in 'con-ti-nen-tal' all soften to a schwa, so the word sounds vaguer than it is written.

How the word is built

• inter- (between)
• continent (continuous land mass)
• -al (adjective suffix)