Prudential

How to spell prudential

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prudential

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prudential mean?

1. adjectiveShowing or relating to careful good judgment, especially in managing money or practical affairs.

Prudential in a sentence

• The board took a prudential approach by keeping a large cash reserve.

• Setting money aside before the holiday was a prudential decision.

Where does prudential come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word reaches back to the Latin prudentia, meaning 'foresight' or 'good sense', which itself was a worn-down form of providentia, literally 'seeing ahead', from providere 'to foresee' (pro- 'before' plus videre 'to see'). The related adjective prudens described someone who could look ahead and act with sensible caution. English took the noun 'prudence' and the adjective 'prudent' from Old French in the 1300s, and later built 'prudential' on top of them, with the spelling settling by the 1500s as a word for matters governed by careful, practical judgment. Because the root means 'seeing ahead', the word naturally attached itself to insurance and finance, where weighing future risks is the whole point. The trap in the spelling is the soft -tial ending, pronounced 'shul', and the single d, since the underlying 'prudent' has no doubling.

How the word is built

• prudent- (from Latin prudens: foreseeing, wise)
• -ial (adjective suffix: relating to)