Preference

How to spell preference

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce preference

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does preference mean?

1. nounA greater liking for one option over another, or the option so favoured.

Preference in a sentence

• The form asks each guest to state a seating preference.

• Her preference for quiet hotels shaped the whole itinerary.

Where does preference come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Preference comes from the Latin verb praeferre, meaning 'to carry in front' or 'to place before', built from prae 'before' and ferre 'to carry or bear'. To prefer something was originally to set it ahead of the alternatives, literally to put it forward, and that sense of ranking one thing above another survives in the modern word. English took it through the Old French preference in the late 1400s and early 1500s, when it described the act of favouring one person or thing over another. The ferre root is remarkably productive and still lurks in everyday relatives such as 'transfer' (carry across), 'refer' (carry back), and 'offer'. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle: people hear pre-FER and want to keep the doubled r and the stressed -fer, but in 'preference' the stress shifts forward and the ending settles as a quiet -erence, with a single r.

How the word is built

• pre- (before)
• fer (from Latin ferre: to carry, bear)
• -ence (noun suffix)