Ministries

How to spell ministries

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce ministries

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ministries mean?

1. nounGovernment departments, each headed by a minister and responsible for a particular area of policy.
2. nounThe work or organisations devoted to spiritual service and the care of a religious congregation.

Ministries in a sentence

• The reforms affected several government ministries at once.

• The church supports a network of charitable ministries in the city.

• Funding cuts hit the health and education ministries hardest.

• Both local ministries ran a shared food bank through the winter.

Where does ministries come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin ministerium, meaning 'service', 'office', or 'attendance', which was built on minister, the word for a servant or attendant who carried out duties for someone of higher rank. That minister in turn came from minus, meaning 'less', because a servant was literally the lesser figure who served, a neat contrast with magister, the 'greater' figure or master. English took the word in through Old French menistere during the 1300s, first in religious senses tied to serving God and the church, and only later in the governmental sense of a department of state run by a minister. The plural ministries simply adds the regular English pattern in which a final -y after a consonant becomes -ies. The spelling trap sits in that quiet middle cluster, ministr-, where the unstressed vowels blur and writers can drop a letter or hesitate over the y-to-ies change.

How the word is built

• ministr- (from Latin minister: servant, attendant)
• -y (noun of office or function)
• -es (plural)