Journalistic

How to spell journalistic

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce journalistic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does journalistic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the profession or style of journalism, the gathering and reporting of news.

Journalistic in a sentence

• The report met the highest journalistic standards for accuracy.

• Her crisp journalistic style made the dense topic easy to follow.

Where does journalistic come from?

Language of origin: French

The word traces back to the Latin diurnalis, meaning 'daily', which itself grew from dies, the Latin word for 'day'. That root passed into Old French as 'jurnal', a word for a daily record or service book, and English took it up as 'journal' in the late 1300s for any record kept day by day. By the 1700s a 'journalist' was someone who wrote for the newspapers and periodicals that appeared on a regular, often daily, schedule, and 'journalistic' was formed by adding the adjective ending -ic to describe anything relating to that profession. The spelling preserves the old French and Latin 'jour' element, the same piece that survives in 'journey', which originally meant a single day's travel. Remembering that journalism is the recording of each day's events helps anchor the 'jour' at the start of the word.

How the word is built

• journal (daily record, from Latin diurnalis: daily)
• -ist (one who practises)
• -ic (relating to)