Policies

How to spell policies

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce policies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does policies mean?

1. nounSettled courses or principles of action adopted by a government, business or institution.
2. nounWritten contracts of insurance setting out cover and terms.

Policies in a sentence

• The new manager reviewed all the company policies before her first meeting.

• She compared three home insurance policies before choosing the cheapest cover.

• Government policies on housing changed sharply after the election.

• The broker explained that both policies excluded flood damage.

Where does policies come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This is the plural of 'policy', which reached English in the late 1300s from Old French 'policie', itself drawn from the medieval Latin 'policia' meaning civil administration or government. The Latin term traces back to the Greek 'politeia', built on 'polis', meaning a city or state, the same root that gives us 'politics', 'police' and 'metropolis'. The earliest English sense was the conduct of public affairs, which gradually narrowed to mean a settled course or principle of action adopted by a government, organisation or person. The separate sense of an insurance contract arrived a little later and has a different family tree: it comes from the Italian 'polizza', a written certificate or receipt, but the two words long ago merged into the single English spelling. When the singular ends in a consonant plus -y, English changes the y to i and adds -es, which is why 'policy' becomes 'policies' rather than the tempting but wrong 'policys'.

How the word is built

• polic- (from medieval Latin policia: civil administration, from Greek polis 'city, state')
• -y (noun) changing to -ies in the plural