Pursuant

How to spell pursuant

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce pursuant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pursuant mean?

1. adjectiveIn accordance with or following from something, especially a law, agreement, or instruction (usually followed by 'to').

Pursuant in a sentence

• Pursuant to the contract, the supplier must deliver within thirty days.

• The tenant was evicted pursuant to the terms of the lease.

Where does pursuant come from?

Language of origin: French

Pursuant comes from Anglo-French and Old French, where pursuant (also spelled poursuiant) was the present participle of the verb poursuir, meaning 'to follow' or 'to chase'. That French verb descends from the Latin prosequi, built from pro-, meaning 'forward' or 'onward', and sequi, meaning 'to follow'; literally it described following something all the way through. English took the word in during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, at first in the sense of someone or something that pursues or follows, before it settled into its modern, rather formal legal life as the phrase 'pursuant to', meaning 'in accordance with' or 'following on from'. The same sequi root still echoes through a family of English words such as 'sequence', 'consequence', and 'pursue' itself. The spelling trap is the quiet 'su' in the middle, pronounced 'soo', plus the '-ant' ending rather than '-ent', a contrast worth fixing in memory since so many adjectives nearby take '-ent'.

How the word is built

• pursu- (from Old French poursuir: to follow, pursue)
• -ant (present-participle/adjective suffix)