Participant

How to spell participant

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce participant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does participant mean?

1. nounA person who takes part in something, such as an event, study, or activity.

Participant in a sentence

• Each participant in the study received a small payment for their time.

• Every participant must sign the safety waiver before the race begins.

Where does participant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin participare, meaning 'to share in' or 'to partake of', which was itself built from pars (a part or share) and capere (to take). A person who took a share was a participans, the present participle, and English absorbed this through Old French and directly from Latin in the late 1500s. The 'cip' in the middle reflects the worn-down form that capere takes inside compounds, the same shift you see in 'recipient' and 'anticipate'. Knowing that the heart of the word is 'take a part' explains its steady spelling: par-ti-ci-pant, with that easily-skipped 'i' before the 'pant' ending. The closely related noun 'participle', a grammatical term, shares the very same root and was once thought to 'partake' of both noun and verb qualities.

How the word is built

• part (a share, portion)
• -i- (connecting vowel)
• -cip- (from capere: to take)
• -ant (noun suffix: one who does)