Notwithstanding

How to spell notwithstanding

15 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce notwithstanding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does notwithstanding mean?

1. prepositionIn spite of; without being prevented by something.
2. conjunctionAlthough; in spite of the fact that.
3. adverbAll the same; nevertheless.

Notwithstanding in a sentence

• preposition

  Notwithstanding the heavy rain, the outdoor wedding went ahead as planned.

• conjunction

  The bridge remained open notwithstanding that engineers had flagged minor cracks.

• adverb

  The contract had clear flaws; the board approved it notwithstanding.

• preposition

  The deal closed on time notwithstanding several last-minute objections.

• conjunction

  Profits rose this quarter notwithstanding the wider market was falling.

• adverb

  Critics warned against the move, but the council pressed on notwithstanding.

Where does notwithstanding come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a Middle English compound, first recorded in the late 1300s, built transparently from 'not' plus 'withstanding', the present participle of 'withstand'. The verb 'withstand' itself joined the Old English prefix 'with', which in early English meant 'against' rather than the modern 'alongside', to 'standan', meaning 'to stand', so it literally meant 'to stand against' or 'to resist'. The whole phrase therefore began as something like 'this thing not standing against it', a grammatical construction known as an absolute. It was almost certainly modelled on the Latin legal phrase 'non obstante', meaning 'not standing in the way', which clerks used in medieval documents, and the English version spread through law and formal writing. The spelling trap is purely its length: it is a single solid word with no hyphens, packing 'not' plus 'with' plus 'standing' into one unbroken string.

How the word is built

• not (negation)
• with (against)
• stand
• -ing (from the verb withstand: to stand against)