Presidential

How to spell presidential

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce presidential

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does presidential mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to a president or the office of president.

Presidential in a sentence

• The presidential election dominated the evening news for weeks.

• Every candidate prepared carefully for the televised presidential debate.

Where does presidential come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb praesidere, meaning 'to sit in front of' or 'to preside over', formed from prae 'before' and sedere 'to sit'. The person who sat at the front, guarding or governing the proceedings, became the praesidens, literally 'the one sitting in front', which gives us 'president'. English took 'president' from Old French in the late 1300s, and the adjective 'presidential' was built later, around the 1600s, by adding the Latin-derived suffix -ial to mean 'relating to a president'. The same sedere 'to sit' root quietly sits inside many English words, including 'reside', 'session', and 'sediment'. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: writers often forget the second 'e' or the 'd', since the schwa sounds blur, yet remembering that a president presides keeps the 'sid' anchored.

How the word is built

• pre- (before)
• sid (from sedere: to sit)
• -ent (agent noun)
• -ial (adjective suffix)