Placement

How to spell placement

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce placement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does placement mean?

1. nounThe act of putting something in a particular position, or the position in which it is put.
2. nounA temporary position with an employer or institution, arranged as part of study or job training.

Placement in a sentence

• The careful placement of the speakers improved the sound in the room.

• She spent the summer on a placement at a local accountancy firm.

• The surgeon checked the placement of the stent before closing the incision.

• The university arranged a six-month industry placement for every engineering student.

Where does placement come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is built from the verb and noun 'place' plus the noun-forming suffix '-ment'. 'Place' itself reached English through Old French 'place', which came from the Latin 'platea', meaning a broad street or open public space; that Latin word in turn borrowed the Greek 'plateia', a feminine adjective meaning 'broad'. The suffix '-ment', also from Latin by way of French, turns a verb into a noun naming the action or its result, so 'placement' literally means the act or result of placing something. The form appears in English from the early 1800s, first describing the simple positioning of objects and people, and later extending to the assigning of someone to a job, school, or training post. Because the suffix simply attaches to the whole word 'place', the silent 'e' is kept, which is the small spelling point worth remembering: it is place + ment, not 'placment'.

How the word is built

• plac(e) (from Latin platea: broad street, open space)
• -ment (noun suffix denoting an action or result)