Reconciliation

How to spell reconciliation

14 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce reconciliation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reconciliation mean?

1. nounThe act of restoring a friendly relationship or resolving a disagreement between people or groups.
2. nounThe process of comparing two sets of financial records to make sure they agree.

Reconciliation in a sentence

• After years of silence, the brothers hoped for a genuine reconciliation.

• The bookkeeper completed the monthly bank reconciliation before the audit.

• The peace talks ended in a fragile reconciliation between the two nations.

• A careful account reconciliation exposed the duplicate payment.

Where does reconciliation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb reconciliare, which meant to bring back together or to make friendly again. It was built from the prefix re-, meaning 'again', and conciliare, meaning 'to unite or win over', which itself grew out of concilium, an 'assembly' or 'gathering' of people called together. So at its root the word literally pictures people being summoned back into one group after a split. English took it in during the late 1300s by way of Old French reconciliacion, keeping the long Latin shape almost intact. The same concilium ancestor sits inside the everyday word 'council', and recognising that buried '-cili-' (with one 'l' and an 'i' on each side) is the surest way to keep the tricky middle of the spelling straight.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• con- (together)
• cili (from conciliare: to bring together)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)