Interview

How to spell interview

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce interview

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does interview mean?

1. nounA formal meeting in which someone is asked questions, such as to assess a job candidate or gather information.
2. verbTo formally question someone, especially to assess them or gather information.

Interview in a sentence

• noun

  She arrived early for the job interview and reviewed her notes.

• verb

  The panel will interview six candidates this afternoon.

• noun

  The reporter published a long interview with the new mayor.

• verb

  Managers often interview several applicants before making a decision.

Where does interview come from?

Language of origin: French

The word entered English in the late 1500s from the French entrevue, a noun built on the reflexive verb s'entrevoir, meaning 'to see one another' or 'to have a glimpse of each other'. That French verb joined entre, meaning 'between', with voir, 'to see', which itself descends from the Latin videre, the same root that gives us 'video', 'vision', and 'evident'. The earliest English sense described a formal face-to-face meeting between people of rank, often for negotiation; only later, through the rise of journalism in the nineteenth century, did it narrow toward the modern senses of questioning a candidate or a public figure. The spelling keeps the visible 'inter' prefix and the everyday word 'view', which is a useful anchor: you are literally getting a 'view' of someone by sitting 'between' and seeing them. Knowing that 'view' sits inside it stops writers from dropping letters in the second half.

How the word is built

• inter- (between)
• view (to see, from Latin videre 'to see')