Location

How to spell location

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce location

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does location mean?

1. nounA particular place or position where something is situated or happens.

Location in a sentence

• The new office is in a convenient location near the station.

• The app records the exact location of every delivery.

Where does location come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb locare, meaning 'to place' or 'to put somewhere', which was itself built on the noun locus, meaning simply 'a place'. The Latin noun locatio described the act of placing something, and in legal contexts it even meant a leasing or letting out. English took the word in during the 1400s, at first carrying the sense of settling or placing something in position, and the modern meaning of 'a particular place or position' developed naturally from there. The same locus root sits inside many familiar relatives, including 'local', 'locate', 'dislocate', and even 'allocate'. The single 'c' followed by '-ation' is the spelling worth fixing in memory, since the schwa in the final syllables hides exactly how the ending is written.

How the word is built

• loc- (from locus: place)
• -ation (noun of action/state)