Interspersed

How to spell interspersed

12 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce interspersed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does interspersed mean?

1. verbScattered or placed at intervals among other things.

Interspersed in a sentence

• The dense report was interspersed with helpful charts and photographs.

• Tall oaks stood interspersed among the rows of younger pines.

Where does interspersed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin verb interspergere, meaning 'to scatter between' or 'to sprinkle among', which combined inter, meaning 'between', with spargere, meaning 'to scatter or sprinkle'. The Latin past participle was interspersus, and that form is the direct ancestor of the English word, which is why the spelling settles on -spersed rather than the -sperced a writer might guess. English adopted it in the early 1600s, originally describing things physically scattered or dotted here and there throughout a larger field. The same spargere root quietly survives in relatives such as 'sparse', 'disperse', and 'aspersion', all of which share the idea of scattering. Keeping that family in mind helps with the trap: the letter is an s, as in 'disperse', not a c.

How the word is built

• inter- (between)
• spers (scatter, sprinkle, from Latin spargere)
• -ed (past participle)