Lecturing

How to spell lecturing

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce lecturing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lecturing mean?

1. verbDelivering a formal spoken talk on a subject to an audience or class.
2. verbReproving or moralising at someone at tedious length.

Lecturing in a sentence

• She has been lecturing on medieval history for two decades.

• Stop lecturing me about my spending habits.

• He enjoys lecturing to first-year students every autumn term.

• She kept lecturing her brother about leaving dishes in the sink.

Where does lecturing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb legere, which meant 'to read', 'to gather', or 'to choose', and to its past participle lectus. From that came the medieval Latin noun lectura, literally 'a reading', because the earliest university teaching consisted of a scholar reading aloud from an authoritative text while students listened and copied. English took up 'lecture' through Old French in the late 1300s, at first simply meaning the act of reading, and only later narrowing to the formal spoken address we know today. The familiar relatives 'legible', 'lecture', 'lectern', and even 'lesson' all share the same legere root, which is a useful reminder that the tricky middle of the word is spelled '-ect-' and the ending keeps the silent '-ure-' before the '-ing'. The scolding sense, meaning a long moralising talking-to, grew naturally in the 1700s out of the image of being made to sit through a long, earnest address.

How the word is built

• lect- (from Latin lectus/legere: read, choose)
• -ure (noun-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle)