Renewal

How to spell renewal

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce renewal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does renewal mean?

1. nounThe act of extending, restoring, or making something new or valid again.

Renewal in a sentence

• The renewal of her passport took three weeks to process.

• The gym sent a reminder about the annual membership renewal.

Where does renewal come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built entirely from English-friendly parts: the verb 'renew' plus the noun-forming suffix '-al'. 'Renew' itself comes from the prefix 're-', meaning 'again', joined to 'new', which descends from the Old English 'niwe' and the wider Germanic family for 'fresh' or 'recently made'. Middle English speakers used 'newen' and then 'renewen' to mean 'make new again', often influenced by the parallel French and Latin forms (Latin 'novare', 'to make new', from 'novus', 'new'). The noun 'renewal', meaning the act of making something new or extending it for a further period, was formed within English itself around the seventeenth century by adding '-al'. The spelling trap lives in the middle: writers must keep the 'new' intact and resist doubling the final 'l', since the stress falls on the second syllable.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• new (root, meaning 'fresh, not old')
• -al (noun-forming suffix)