Renewable

How to spell renewable

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce renewable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does renewable mean?

1. adjectiveCapable of being renewed, replenished, or extended, especially of natural resources that are not depleted by use.
2. nounA source of energy that replenishes naturally, such as wind, solar, or hydro power.

Renewable in a sentence

• adjective

  The company now buys most of its electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar.

• noun

  The national grid now draws a growing share of its power from each renewable on the network.

• adjective

  The gym membership comes with a renewable annual contract.

• noun

  Solar remains the cheapest renewable to install on a domestic roof.

Where does renewable come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the verb 'renew', which combines the prefix 're-', meaning 'again', with 'new', a thoroughly native English word descending from the Old English 'niwe', meaning 'fresh' or 'recent'. The ending '-able' arrived through Old French from the Latin suffix '-abilis', which marks something as capable of being done, so the whole word literally describes something that is 'able to be made new again'. 'Renew' itself was modelled in Middle English on the Latin 'renovare', the same root that gives us 'renovate'. For centuries the word simply meant something that could be extended or refreshed, such as a lease or a contract, and only in the twentieth century did it take on its now familiar environmental sense of energy sources that naturally replenish. The spelling trap lies in the quiet '-able' ending and the single internal letters: writers sometimes double a consonant or reach for '-ible' by mistake.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• new (fresh, recent)
• -able (able to be)