Resident

How to spell resident

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce resident

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does resident mean?

1. nounA person who lives permanently or long-term in a particular place.
2. adjectiveLiving, based, or located in a particular place on a permanent or ongoing basis.
3. nounA doctor in training who works in a hospital after completing an internship.

Resident in a sentence

• noun

  Every resident of the building received a letter about the parking changes.

• adjective

  The hotel has a resident chef who designs the seasonal menu.

• noun

  The surgical resident stayed late to monitor the patient overnight.

• noun

  As a long-term resident of the village, she knew almost everyone by name.

• adjective

  A resident population of seals returns to the bay each spring.

• noun

  After her internship she began a three-year resident programme in paediatrics.

Where does resident come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb residere, meaning 'to settle down', 'to remain', or literally 'to sit back', formed from the prefix re- and the verb sedere 'to sit'. The present participle residentem described someone or something that stays put in a place, and that sense of remaining or dwelling carried straight through into the modern meaning. English took the word in the late 1400s by way of Old French, first as an adjective for something staying or settled and soon afterwards as a noun for a person who lives somewhere. The same sedere root quietly underlies a whole family of English words, including 'sediment' (what settles to the bottom), 'session', and 'reside' itself. Remembering that the middle is a soft 'sid' from 'sit' helps fix the single 's' and the -ent ending that adults often want to spell as -ant.

How the word is built

• re- (intensive/back)
• sid (from Latin sedere: to sit, dwell)
• -ent (agent/adjective suffix)