Scientific

How to spell scientific

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce scientific

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scientific mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to, based on, or using the methods and principles of science.

Scientific in a sentence

• The team published their findings in a respected scientific journal.

• Every claim in the report was backed by rigorous scientific evidence.

Where does scientific come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes ultimately from the Latin scientia, meaning 'knowledge', which was built on the verb scire, 'to know'. The adjective scientific was formed from the Late Latin scientificus, a compound of scientia and facere ('to make' or 'to do'), so it literally carried the idea of 'producing knowledge'. English took the word in during the late 1500s, by way of French scientifique and directly from the Latin, at a time when systematic enquiry into nature was becoming a recognised discipline. The same scire root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'science', 'conscience', and 'omniscient'. For spelling, the trap is the opening 'sci', where the silent 'c' after the 's' simply marks the soft sound, a fossil of the Latin spelling that English chose to keep.

How the word is built

• sci- (from scire: to know)
• -ent-
• -ific (from facere: to make/do, forming adjectives meaning 'making')