Managerial

How to spell managerial

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce managerial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does managerial mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the work, role, or skills of a manager.

Managerial in a sentence

• The promotion gave her a managerial role overseeing three departments.

• Poor managerial decisions led to the project running months behind schedule.

Where does managerial come from?

Language of origin: Italian

This word traces back through 'manager' to the verb 'manage', which English adopted in the late 1500s from the Italian maneggiare, meaning 'to handle' or 'to control', especially in the sense of training and directing a horse. That Italian verb grew from the Latin manus, meaning 'hand', so the underlying image is of taking something firmly in hand. The agent noun 'manager' (one who handles affairs) was formed in English, and the adjective 'managerial' was built on it with the Latin-derived suffix -ial, meaning 'relating to', appearing in the early 1700s. The same manus root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'manual', 'manipulate', and 'manufacture', all of which carry a sense of doing something by hand. The spelling trap is the unstressed run of vowels in the ending: writers must keep the 'a' of manage, the 'e' of -er, and the 'ial' all in order, giving '-agerial' rather than a tempting but wrong '-agerual' or '-agerail'.

How the word is built

• manage (to handle, direct)
• -er (agent: manager)
• -ial (adjective suffix: relating to)