Shipbuilding

How to spell shipbuilding

12 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce shipbuilding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shipbuilding mean?

1. nounThe industry, craft, or activity of constructing ships.

Shipbuilding in a sentence

• The coastal town built its wealth on shipbuilding and trade.

• Modern shipbuilding relies heavily on welded steel sections.

Where does shipbuilding come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining 'ship' and 'building', and both halves descend from Old English. 'Ship' comes from Old English 'scip', a word shared across the Germanic languages for a sea-going vessel, while 'build' derives from Old English 'byldan', meaning 'to construct a dwelling', itself rooted in 'bold', an Old English word for a house or fixed home. The verb 'build' kept its irregular spelling because the older form had a 'y' sound that later settled into the 'ui' cluster, which is exactly the part writers can stumble over. The compound 'shipbuilding' came into regular use during the era of large maritime industries, naming the whole craft and trade of constructing vessels rather than a single act of building. Because it is simply two familiar native words pushed together with no joining hyphen, the only real spelling question is whether to keep it as one solid word, which standard usage does.

How the word is built

• ship (sea-going vessel)
• build (to construct)
• -ing (noun-forming suffix)