Servicing

How to spell servicing

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce servicing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does servicing mean?

1. nounThe act of maintaining, inspecting, or repairing a machine or vehicle to keep it working properly.
2. nounThe act of meeting the regular interest and repayment obligations on a debt or loan.

Servicing in a sentence

• The garage charged a flat fee for servicing the car.

• Much of the household budget went toward servicing the mortgage.

• Regular servicing of the boiler prevents costly breakdowns.

• The company struggled with servicing its growing debt.

Where does servicing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the Latin servire, meaning 'to serve' or 'to be a servant', which produced the noun servitium, meaning 'service' or 'the duty of a slave'. By the time the word travelled through Old French as servise and into English in the 1200s, it carried the broad sense of work done for another, from religious worship to feudal obligation. From the noun 'service' English later formed the verb 'to service', meaning to maintain or repair something so it keeps working, a usage that became common with machinery and motor cars in the early twentieth century. 'Servicing' is the present participle and gerund of that verb, and it kept the single 'c' and the soft '-cing' ending that trips writers who expect a doubled consonant. The same servire root also gave us 'servant', 'servile', and 'sergeant', a family that all circles back to the idea of serving.

How the word is built

• serv- (from Latin servire: to serve)
• -ice (noun-forming)
• -ing (gerund/participle suffix)