Organised

How to spell organised

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce organised

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does organised mean?

1. verbArranged or coordinated something into a planned, orderly arrangement.
2. adjectiveMethodical, tidy, and good at planning and arranging things.

Organised in a sentence

• verb

  She organised the entire conference in under three weeks.

• adjective

  A highly organised colleague keeps every deadline in a shared calendar.

• verb

  The volunteers organised the donated clothes by size and colour.

• adjective

  The office felt calmer once the filing system was neat and organised.

Where does organised come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek organon, which literally meant a 'tool' or 'instrument', and which also gave us the musical and bodily senses of 'organ'. Latin borrowed this as organum, and from it medieval Latin coined organizare, meaning 'to furnish with organs' or 'to give an orderly structure to', as if assembling parts into a working whole. English took the verb in through Old French organiser during the late Middle Ages, at first in the sense of arranging something into a connected, functioning system. The everyday meaning of putting things into a tidy order, and the adjective describing a methodical person, developed naturally from that idea of fitting parts together. The spelling trap lives in the ending: British usage writes the suffix as -ise, so the past form is 'organised', while the same root underlies 'organism' and 'organ', all sharing that single Greek ancestor for 'instrument'.

How the word is built

• organ- (from Greek organon: tool, instrument)
• -ise (verb-forming suffix)
• -d (past tense/participle)

British and American spelling

Organised is the British spelling. American English spells it organized.