Programme

How to spell programme

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce programme

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does programme mean?

1. nounA planned series of events, activities, or items, or a single broadcast on television or radio.
2. verbTo arrange or schedule something according to a fixed plan, or to set a device to operate in a chosen way.

Programme in a sentence

• noun

  The training programme runs over six weeks at the head office.

• verb

  You can programme the boiler to switch on an hour before you wake.

• noun

  She recorded the wildlife programme to watch later that evening.

• verb

  The committee will programme the workshops across three afternoons.

Where does programme come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek programma, which meant 'a written public notice' or 'a proclamation displayed where people could read it'. That noun came from prographein, built from pro- meaning 'before' or 'in public' and graphein meaning 'to write', so the literal sense was 'a thing written up beforehand'. It passed through Late Latin as programma and then into French as programme, and English borrowed the French form in the early 1600s, originally for a public notice and later for a printed plan of proceedings such as a concert or theatre bill. The double-m and silent final -e that trip up modern writers are simply the French dressing the word kept on its way into British English. The same graphein root sits inside everyday words like 'graph', 'diagram' and 'paragraph', which is a useful reminder that programme is fundamentally about something written down.

How the word is built

• pro- (before, in public)
• -gramme (from Greek gramma: something written)

British and American spelling

Programme is the British spelling. American English spells it program.