Repairing

How to spell repairing

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce repairing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does repairing mean?

1. verbRestoring something damaged or broken to good working condition.

Repairing in a sentence

• The mechanic spent the afternoon repairing the gearbox.

• They are repairing the roof before the winter storms arrive.

Where does repairing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of the verb 'repair', which English took from the Old French verb 'reparer' in the 1300s, itself descended from the Latin 'reparare'. That Latin verb joins 're-', meaning 'again', to 'parare', meaning 'to prepare' or 'to put in order', so the literal idea was to make something ready once more. From the start it carried the modern sense of mending or restoring damaged things to working order. The same 'parare' root sits inside a surprising family of everyday words, including 'prepare', 'apparatus', and even 'repertoire'. There is also a separate, more literary verb 'repair' meaning 'to go to a place', which comes instead from the Latin 'repatriare' (to return to one's homeland); the two verbs are spelled identically but have unrelated origins, which is why the spelling 'repairing' covers both ideas.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• pair (from Latin parare: to prepare, put in order)
• -ing (present participle)