Register

How to spell register

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce register

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does register mean?

1. verbTo enter a name or detail formally into an official record, or to enrol.
2. nounAn official written list or book of records.
3. nounA machine in a shop that records sales and holds the money taken.

Register in a sentence

• verb

  New students must register for classes before the deadline.

• noun

  The teacher marked each pupil present in the register.

• noun

  The cashier counted the notes in the register at closing time.

• verb

  You need to register the car with the licensing authority within a month.

• noun

  His name appeared in the public register of company directors.

• noun

  A long queue formed at the only open register in the store.

Where does register come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Late Latin regesta, meaning 'things recorded' or 'a list', which was the neuter plural of regestus, the past participle of regerere 'to carry back' or 'to record'. That verb combined re- 'back' with gerere 'to carry or bear', the same root that gives us 'gesture' and 'digest'. Medieval Latin reshaped it into registrum or regestrum, a book in which entries were entered, and English took the word in the late 1300s by way of Old French registre. It first named an official written record, then extended naturally to the act of entering something into such a record. The hidden second 's' that some writers expect (as in the older 'registre') was smoothed away, so the modern spelling keeps a single 's' and the tidy -ter ending.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• gest (from Latin gerere: to carry, to bear)
• -er (noun/instrument suffix)