Registration

How to spell registration

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce registration

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does registration mean?

1. nounThe act of entering a name, vehicle, or detail into an official list or record, or the document confirming this.

Registration in a sentence

• Registration for the spring conference closes at the end of the week.

• The police checked the vehicle registration against their database.

Where does registration come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the medieval Latin registrum, a list or written record, which was itself an alteration of the earlier Latin regesta, meaning 'things recorded or entered'. That noun came from the verb regerere, literally 'to carry back' or 'to bring back', formed from re- ('back') and gerere ('to carry or bear'). The idea was that information was carried back into an official book for safekeeping. English took the noun 'register' through Old French in the late 1300s, and the action noun 'registration' followed by the 1500s to name the act of entering something into such a record. The slightly hidden trap in spelling is the unstressed middle: writers know 'register' but must remember the -tration ending sits on the same stem, with the t belonging to the -ation suffix.

How the word is built

• re- (again/back)
• gest/regist (from registrum: a list or record)
• -ation (noun of action)