Signalling

How to spell signalling

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce signalling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does signalling mean?

1. verbCommunicating or indicating something by means of a gesture, light, sound, or device.

Signalling in a sentence

• The driver kept signalling left before changing lanes on the motorway.

• Poor signalling on the rail network delayed every train into the station.

Where does signalling come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin signum, which meant a mark, a token, or a standard carried into battle, and it is the same root that gives us 'sign', 'signature', and 'design'. From signum, Latin formed signalis, meaning 'belonging to a sign', and that adjective passed through Old French into late Middle English as 'signal', first describing something remarkable or conspicuous. By the seventeenth century 'signal' had become a noun and then a verb for a deliberate gesture or device used to convey information at a distance, as with flags, lamps, or railway arms. The form 'signalling' simply adds the verbal ending '-ing' to that verb. The spelling trap lies in the doubled l: in British and Canadian usage the final l of 'signal' is doubled before '-ing' even though the stress falls on the first syllable, whereas American spelling keeps a single l in 'signaling'.

How the word is built

• sign (Latin signum: a mark or token)
• -al (forming the noun/verb 'signal')
• -ing (verbal/gerund suffix, with the final l doubled in British and Canadian spelling)

British and American spelling

Signalling is the British spelling. American English spells it signaling.