Preservation

How to spell preservation

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce preservation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does preservation mean?

1. nounThe act of protecting something from harm, loss, or decay so that it survives intact.

Preservation in a sentence

• The museum spends a fortune on the preservation of its oldest manuscripts.

• Salt and sugar were the traditional methods of food preservation before refrigeration.

Where does preservation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb servare, meaning 'to keep safe, to watch over, or to guard'. Adding the prefix prae- (meaning 'before' or 'beforehand') produced the Late Latin praeservare, which carried the sense of guarding something in advance so that harm never reaches it. From there it passed through Old French as preservacion and entered English in the late 1300s, originally in religious and medical contexts about keeping the body or soul from corruption. The same servare root sits inside a whole family of English words, including conserve, reserve, and observe, all of which share that core idea of keeping or watching. The spelling trap is the quiet middle: writers must remember the single 's' after the prefix and the standard -ation ending rather than slipping in a doubled letter or an unexpected 'c'.

How the word is built

• pre- (before, beforehand)
• serv (from servare: to keep, guard)
• -ation (noun of action)