Residence

How to spell residence

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce residence

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does residence mean?

1. nounThe place where a person lives, or the fact of living in a particular place.

Residence in a sentence

• The ambassador's official residence overlooks the river.

• She gave the bank her current residence when applying for the loan.

Where does residence come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb residere, meaning 'to sit down, settle, or remain in place', formed from re- 'back' and sedere 'to sit'. The related Latin noun residentia described the act of dwelling or staying somewhere. English took it up in the late 1300s by way of Old French residence, at first carrying the sense of the act of living or abiding in a particular place, and later coming to mean the dwelling itself. The same sedere root sits quietly inside a whole family of English words, including 'sediment' (what settles to the bottom), 'session', and 'reside' itself. The ending is the classic spelling trap: it is -ence, not -ance, because it descends from the Latin -entia ending rather than -antia.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• sid (from Latin sedere: to sit, settle)
• -ence (noun suffix)