Ministry

How to spell ministry

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce ministry

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ministry mean?

1. nounA government department headed by a minister and responsible for a particular area of public administration.
2. nounThe work, office, or vocation of a member of the clergy or of religious service generally.

Ministry in a sentence

• The ministry of health announced new funding for rural clinics.

• After university he felt a calling to the ministry and trained as a pastor.

• She spent a decade working as a civil servant in the ministry of finance.

• Her ministry focused on supporting families in the poorest parts of the city.

Where does ministry come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin ministerium, which meant 'service', 'office', or 'occupation', and was built on minister, meaning 'servant' or 'attendant'. That noun minister is itself linked to minus, meaning 'less', so a minister was literally a lesser figure who served, standing in deliberate contrast to magister, the 'master' (from magis, 'more'), which gave us 'magistrate' and 'master'. English took the word in through Old French menistere during the 1300s, at first chiefly in the religious sense of spiritual service and the work of the clergy. From the 1500s onward it broadened to cover the office of a government minister and, by extension, a whole department of state. The link back to minister explains the spelling: keep the full minister visible and simply add the -y, since the unstressed middle syllable can otherwise tempt writers to drop a letter.

How the word is built

• minister (from Latin minister: servant, attendant)
• -y (noun suffix denoting office or function)