Resistance

How to spell resistance

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce resistance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does resistance mean?

1. nounThe act of opposing, fighting, or refusing to accept something.
2. nounThe degree to which a material opposes the flow of electric current, measured in ohms.

Resistance in a sentence

• The new tax policy met fierce resistance from small business owners.

• A thinner wire has greater resistance and heats up more quickly.

• The troops advanced quickly because they encountered little resistance.

• The technician measured the resistance of the circuit with a multimeter.

Where does resistance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb resistere, which combined the prefix re-, meaning 'back' or 'against', with sistere, meaning 'to stand' or 'to make a stand'. The literal sense was therefore 'to stand firm against' something, an image of physically holding one's ground. From the verb Latin formed a noun of action, and the word passed into Old French as resistance before being adopted into English in the late 1300s. Its meaning broadened over time from physical and military opposition to abstract opposition of all kinds, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it gained a precise scientific sense for the way a conductor opposes the flow of electric current. The same sist root that means 'to stand' still anchors close relatives such as 'insist', 'persist', and 'consist', and the doubled s in that root explains the spelling that trips writers who expect a single s.

How the word is built

• re- (back, against)
• sist (to stand, from Latin sistere)
• -ance (noun-forming suffix)