Reliance

How to spell reliance

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce reliance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reliance mean?

1. nounThe state of depending on or trusting in someone or something for support.

Reliance in a sentence

• The company's heavy reliance on a single supplier left it exposed.

• Their reliance on credit cards made the monthly budget hard to balance.

Where does reliance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Reliance is built on the verb 'rely', which English took from the Old French 'relier', meaning 'to bind together' or 'to fasten'. That French verb descended from the Latin 'religare', a compound of 're-' (back or again) and 'ligare' (to bind or tie), so the literal idea was binding something firmly back into place. In English 'rely' first carried the sense of rallying or gathering close, but by the 1500s it had shifted to the modern meaning of leaning on someone or something with confidence, as if bound to them for support. The abstract noun 'reliance', formed with the suffix '-ance' to name a state or condition, appears in the early 1600s for the act or fact of depending on another. The same Latin 'ligare' root surfaces in 'ligament', the tissue that binds bones together, and in 'oblige', and remembering that buried 'li' (bind) helps explain why the word is spelled with the calmer '-ance' ending rather than '-ence'.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• li (from Latin ligare, to bind)
• -ance (noun of state)