Interim

How to spell interim

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce interim

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does interim mean?

1. adjectiveHolding a position or filling a role temporarily, until a permanent arrangement is made.
2. nounThe period of time between two events; the meantime.

Interim in a sentence

• adjective

  The board appointed an interim chief executive while the search continued.

• noun

  The new offices open in March, and in the interim the team will work remotely.

• adjective

  Staff received an interim pay rise pending the full review.

• noun

  The manager resigned, and a deputy ran the department in the interim.

Where does interim come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Interim was taken directly from Latin, where it functioned as an adverb meaning 'in the meantime' or 'meanwhile'. It was built on the preposition inter, meaning 'between' or 'among', the same root that gives English words like 'interval' and 'international'. In Latin the word literally pointed to the stretch of time lying between two events, the gap before something permanent arrived. English adopted it in the early 1500s, at first as that same adverb, and it soon hardened into a noun for an intervening period and an adjective for anything temporary that fills such a gap. Because it came over whole from Latin rather than being reshaped by French, the spelling stayed compact and unchanged, and the trap is simply remembering the single 'r' and the closing '-im' rather than the more familiar '-um' ending seen in words like 'maximum'.

How the word is built

• inter- (between, among)
• -im (from Latin adverbial ending); literally 'in the time between'