Sanitary

How to spell sanitary

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce sanitary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sanitary mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to cleanliness, hygiene, or the protection of public health, especially the disposal of waste and sewage.

Sanitary in a sentence

• The restaurant failed its inspection over poor sanitary conditions in the kitchen.

• The camp lacked basic sanitary facilities such as clean toilets and running water.

Where does sanitary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin sanitas, meaning 'health' or 'soundness of body', which was itself built on the adjective sanus, meaning 'healthy' or 'sound'. English borrowed it through the French sanitaire in the early nineteenth century, just as the modern science of public hygiene was taking shape, and so the word arrived attached to drains, water supplies, and disease prevention rather than to general wellbeing. The same Latin sanus survives in the everyday phrase 'sane' and in 'sanatorium', a place built to restore health. The spelling trap sits in the middle and end: the second vowel is an unstressed schwa that writers are tempted to spell 'e' or 'i', and the ending is the less obvious '-ary' rather than '-ery'. Remembering the root sanitas, with its clear 'i', helps anchor the correct middle letter.

How the word is built

• sanit- (from Latin sanitas: health, soundness)
• -ary (adjective suffix: relating to)