Launch

How to spell launch

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce launch

What does launch mean?

1. verbTo set something in motion, send it forth, or formally begin a venture or product.
2. nounThe act or occasion of starting something or sending it forth.
3. nounA large open or partly enclosed motorboat used for short trips on water.

Launch in a sentence

• verb

  The company plans to launch the new phone in the spring.

• noun

  The product launch attracted hundreds of journalists.

• noun

  The harbour master crossed the bay in a small motor launch.

• verb

  Engineers will launch the satellite from the coastal site.

• noun

  Bad weather delayed the rocket launch by two days.

• noun

  Guests boarded the launch to reach the island resort.

Where does launch come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English from Old French, where lancher (in the northern dialect) and lancier meant 'to throw, hurl, or fling forward'. Those verbs grew out of the Latin lancea, the name for a light spear or lance that soldiers would hurl at the enemy, so the original idea was literally of casting something forward through the air. English picked it up in the 1300s, first in the sense of thrusting or propelling a weapon, then quickly widening to mean setting a ship moving into the water by pushing it down the slipway. The everyday relative 'lance', meaning a long thrusting spear, comes from exactly the same Latin source. The spelling trap is the silent stretch in the middle: writers reach for the sound and may drop letters or muddle the 'au', even though the 'launch' ending mirrors common words like 'haunch' and 'staunch'.

How the word is built

• launch (single root, from Old French lancher/lancier: to throw or hurl, ultimately from Latin lancea: a spear)