Rallying

How to spell rallying

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce rallying

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rallying mean?

1. verbComing together for a shared cause, or regaining strength and spirit after a setback.
2. nounThe sport of driving cars at speed over a set course, usually on rough or public roads against the clock.

Rallying in a sentence

• verb

  The captain spent halftime rallying the discouraged squad.

• noun

  He took up rallying after years of watching the championship on television.

• verb

  After the disappointing sales figures, the team began rallying around a new plan.

• noun

  The club hosts a rallying event across the forest tracks every autumn.

Where does rallying come from?

Language of origin: French

The base verb 'rally' came into English in the late 1500s from the French rallier, which meant 'to reunite' or 'to bring scattered troops back together'. That French verb was built from the prefix re- 'again' and allier 'to unite or ally', and allier itself goes back to the Latin alligare, literally 'to bind to', from ligare 'to bind' (the same root that gives us 'ligament' and 'ally'). The military picture of soldiers regrouping after a retreat broadened over time into the general idea of gathering people for a common cause, and later into the sense of recovering strength after a setback. The form 'rallying' is simply the verb with the present participle ending -ing, used both as a continuous verb and as a noun. In the twentieth century it also became the name for the motorsport in which drivers cover a set course against the clock, a sense that grew out of the original notion of cars assembling at a meeting point.

How the word is built

• rally (from French rallier: to reunite)
• -ing (present participle / verbal noun suffix)