Networking

How to spell networking

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce networking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does networking mean?

1. nounThe activity of meeting people and building relationships to advance one's career or business.
2. nounThe practice of connecting computers and devices so they can share data and resources.

Networking in a sentence

• The conference offered plenty of networking over coffee and lunch.

• The IT team handles all the networking for the new office.

• She landed the job through networking rather than a formal application.

• He studied networking to learn how routers and switches pass data.

Where does networking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from two of the oldest pieces of English: 'net', from the Old English 'net' meaning a mesh of knotted cord used for catching fish or birds, and 'work', from the Old English 'weorc' meaning labour or activity. By the 1500s the compound 'network' described any structure of crossing lines or threads that resembled a literal net, such as lace or a lattice. Over the following centuries the image was borrowed for anything woven together, so that by the nineteenth century people spoke of networks of canals, railways, and rivers. The verbal noun 'networking' is much more recent: it rose in the twentieth century, first for interconnecting electrical and computing systems, then by the 1970s for the social activity of cultivating useful personal contacts. Because both roots are short, plain words joined without any change in spelling, the only trap is remembering that it is a single solid word rather than two.

How the word is built

• net (mesh)
• work (labour, activity)
• -ing (gerund/noun suffix)