Prefecture

How to spell prefecture

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prefecture

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prefecture mean?

1. nounAn administrative district or region governed by a prefect, or the office and authority of a prefect.

Prefecture in a sentence

• Each Japanese prefecture keeps its own tourism office and local tax rules.

• The report compared road spending across every French prefecture in the south.

Where does prefecture come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin praefectura, which named the office, authority, or district of a praefectus, a high Roman official set over a region or department. That title was itself the past participle of praeficere, 'to place in charge', formed from prae meaning 'before' or 'in front' and facere meaning 'to make' or 'to do'. The same facere root quietly powers a huge family of English words, including 'factory', 'manufacture', and 'perfect', and noticing the buried 'fect' from facere helps explain the spelling. English took the term from French préfecture in the seventeenth century, where it described administrative divisions, and it later attached neatly to the modern administrative districts of countries such as France and Japan. The trap for writers is the unstressed middle: it is easy to lose the 'c' in the 'fect' cluster or to muddle the closing '-ture'.

How the word is built

• pre- (from prae: before, in front)
• fect (from facere: to make, place in charge)
• -ure (noun of office or condition)