Posture

How to spell posture

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce posture

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does posture mean?

1. nounThe way a person holds and carries the body when sitting or standing.
2. nounA particular approach or attitude that a person or organisation adopts toward an issue.
3. verbTo behave in an artificial or exaggerated way in order to impress others.

Posture in a sentence

• noun

  Years of slouching at a desk had ruined her posture.

• noun

  The company softened its posture on remote working after the survey.

• verb

  The rival firms continued to posture rather than reach a real deal.

• noun

  The physiotherapist gave him exercises to improve his posture.

• noun

  The government took a firm posture on tax evasion.

• verb

  Politicians often posture for the cameras during a crisis.

Where does posture come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travelled into English from the Latin positura, meaning 'a placing' or 'an arrangement', which was built on the verb ponere, 'to put or place', and its past participle positus, 'placed'. The same positus root sits behind a whole family of familiar English words, including position, deposit, compose and expose, all of which share the underlying idea of putting something somewhere. English took posture in the late 1500s by way of French and Italian, where it described the way the body was set or held. From that literal sense of physical bearing it later grew a figurative one, so that by the 1700s a posture could also be an attitude or a deliberately struck pose, and the verb 'to posture' came to mean putting on a false manner to impress others. The 'pos' kept from Latin positus is the steady clue to the spelling, with the often overlooked 't' giving the soft 'tch' sound before the final '-ure'.

How the word is built

• pos- (from Latin ponere/positus: to place, set)
• -ure (noun suffix forming result or state)