Launches

How to spell launches

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce launches

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does launches mean?

1. verbSets something in motion, sends it out, or formally introduces it, said of a single third party.
2. nounMore than one large open or partly covered motorboat used to carry people or goods.

Launches in a sentence

• verb

  The company launches a new phone every autumn.

• noun

  Two launches ferried the passengers from the harbour to the moored yacht.

• verb

  The crew launches the lifeboat as soon as the alarm sounds.

• noun

  The marina kept several launches ready for guided tours of the bay.

Where does launches come from?

Language of origin: French

The base word launch arrived in English in the 1300s from Old French lanchier or lancher, a northern form of lancier, meaning 'to hurl' or 'to throw'. That verb traces back to the Latin lanceare, 'to wield or throw a lance', built on lancea, the Latin word for a light spear or 'lance'. The early English sense was literally to fling something forward, which over time settled into the modern idea of setting a boat into the water or, much later, sending a rocket or a product out into the world. The small-boat noun sense, as in a motor launch, came by a separate route: it entered English in the 1690s from the Spanish and Portuguese lancha, a large ship's boat, itself probably borrowed from the Malay lancharan. The -es ending is simply the regular English way of forming a plural noun or a third-person singular verb after a word ending in -ch.

How the word is built

• launch (from Old French lanchier, to hurl)
• -es (plural/third-person suffix)