Publishing

How to spell publishing

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce publishing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does publishing mean?

1. nounThe business or activity of preparing and issuing books, journals, or other works for public sale or distribution.
2. verbMaking written or printed material available to the public, as the ongoing action of the verb publish.

Publishing in a sentence

• noun

  She left teaching for a career in academic publishing.

• verb

  The firm is publishing its annual report online this week.

• noun

  The company expanded its publishing operation to include digital titles.

• verb

  By publishing the findings early, the team hoped to inform the wider debate.

Where does publishing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the verb 'publish', which English took from Old French 'publier' and ultimately from the Latin verb 'publicare', meaning 'to make public' or 'to lay open to the people'. That Latin verb was built on 'publicus', the adjective for 'belonging to the people', which in turn relates to 'populus', meaning 'the people' (the same root that gives us 'population' and 'public'). When the word arrived in English in the 1300s it meant simply to announce or make something widely known, and only later did it narrow to the modern sense of issuing printed books, newspapers, and other works for sale. The '-ing' ending then turned the verb into both a present participle and a noun naming the whole trade. A useful spelling note: the base is 'publish', so the form is built as publish + ing, with no doubled letter and the silent flow of 'sh' carried straight through.

How the word is built

• publish (from Latin publicare: to make public)
• -ing (forms a verbal noun or present participle)