Pressure

How to spell pressure

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pressure

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pressure mean?

1. nounThe use of persuasion, force, or stressful demands to influence someone, or the physical force pushing against a surface.

Pressure in a sentence

• There's a lot of pressure at work.

• Try not to put yourself under so much pressure.

Where does pressure come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin pressura, meaning 'a pressing' or 'the act of squeezing', which was built on the verb premere, 'to press' (its past participle stem gives us press-). It passed into Old French and then into Middle English in the late 1300s, originally describing physical squeezing or the suffering caused by oppression. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from literal force pushing on a surface to the figurative weight of demands, stress, and urgent expectation. The same premere root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'press', 'compress', 'express', and 'depress', all sharing that idea of force applied. The tricky part for spellers is the ending: the -ssure cluster sounds like a simple 'sher', so the double s and the -ure are easy to drop or mangle.

How the word is built

• press (from Latin pressare: to press)
• -ure (noun suffix forming a state or result)