Policy

How to spell policy

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce policy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does policy mean?

1. nounA settled plan, principle, or set of rules adopted by a government, business, or individual to guide decisions.
2. nounA written contract of insurance setting out the cover provided and the premium owed.

Policy in a sentence

• The company updated its refund policy after customer complaints.

• She read the small print of her travel policy before the trip.

• The government announced a new immigration policy this morning.

• The flood damage was not covered by their home policy.

Where does policy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The everyday sense of policy, a settled course or principle of action, came into English in the 1300s from Old French policie, which itself traced back to the Latin politia, meaning 'the state' or 'civil administration'. That Latin word was borrowed from the Greek politeia, which meant citizenship, government, or the way a city governed itself, built on polis, the Greek word for 'city'. So a policy is literally a way of governing or managing affairs, a meaning that still fits both a national government and a company's internal rules. The same polis root sits behind 'police', 'politics', and 'metropolis', all sharing that ancient idea of the city and its ordering. Curiously, the unrelated insurance sense of policy arrived separately through Italian polizza, meaning a written certificate or receipt, so two different histories ended up spelled the same way; in either case the trap is the single l and the soft c that sounds like an s.

How the word is built

• polic- (from Greek politeia: government, citizenship)
• -y (noun suffix)