Procedural

How to spell procedural

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce procedural

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does procedural mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to an established or official way of doing something, especially the correct sequence of steps or formalities.
2. nounA television or film drama that focuses in detail on the routine processes of an investigation, such as police or legal work.

Procedural in a sentence

• adjective

  The appeal was rejected on a procedural technicality rather than the facts.

• noun

  The series is a slow-burn police procedural set in a small coastal town.

• adjective

  The audit found several procedural errors in how expenses were approved.

• noun

  Fans of the legal procedural praised its accurate courtroom detail.

Where does procedural come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb procedere, meaning 'to go forward' or 'to advance', formed from pro 'forward' and cedere 'to go' or 'to yield'. The same cedere root quietly powers a large family of English words, including 'proceed', 'recede', 'concede' and 'succeed', which is why the middle of procedural is spelled with that single 'ced'. English took the noun 'procedure' from French procedure in the early 1600s to mean an established way of doing something, and the adjective 'procedural' was built on it later, becoming common in the nineteenth century in legal and administrative contexts. The modern sense, concerning the correct steps or formal process by which something is done, sits very close to that original idea of moving forward step by step. The spelling trap is that the noun ends in 'cedure' but the adjective stretches to 'cedural', and the soft 'ced' can tempt writers toward a double letter or an 's' that does not belong.

How the word is built

• pro- (forward)
• ced (from Latin cedere: to go)
• -ure (noun-forming)
• -al (adjective suffix)