Relevance

How to spell relevance

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce relevance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does relevance mean?

1. nounThe quality of being closely connected with or appropriate to the matter being considered.

Relevance in a sentence

• The committee questioned the relevance of the report to the current budget.

• Each slide should demonstrate its relevance to the project goals.

Where does relevance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb relevare, which literally meant 'to raise up' or 'to lift again', built from re- 'again' and levare 'to lighten or raise', the same levare that gives us 'lever' and 'elevate'. In medieval Latin the present participle relevantem came to mean 'bearing upon' or 'assisting', and from that legal and scholastic sense the adjective 'relevant' entered English in the early 1500s, originally as a Scots law term meaning 'legally pertinent' or 'sufficient'. The noun 'relevance' was formed later, by the seventeenth century, by adding the abstract suffix -ance to express the quality of being connected to the matter at hand. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle and final vowels: both the -e- in -lev- and the -a- in -ance flatten into a schwa in speech, so writers must remember it is -ance and not -ence, and -lev- and not -liv-. Keeping the underlying 'relevant' in mind anchors the troublesome a.

How the word is built

• relev- (from Latin relevare: to raise up, lift, relieve)
• -ance (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)