Significance

How to spell significance

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce significance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does significance mean?

1. nounThe quality of being important, meaningful, or worthy of attention.

Significance in a sentence

• The committee underestimated the significance of the new safety report.

• Historians still debate the significance of that treaty.

Where does significance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin significantia, meaning 'meaning' or 'expressiveness', which was built on the verb significare, 'to signify' or 'to make a sign'. That verb joined signum, meaning 'a sign, mark, or token', with facere, 'to make', so the literal idea was 'sign-making', the act of conveying meaning through a token. English took the word in through Old French and Latin scholarly use during the late Middle Ages, first carrying the sense of the meaning expressed by something and later broadening to the modern sense of importance or consequence. The same signum root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'signal', 'design', and 'signature', which is a useful reminder that significance is spelled with that hidden 'g' from sign even though the 'g' is not clearly heard. The tricky 'c' in the middle comes straight from the Latin -ific- element, and the soft -ance ending is the standard noun suffix.

How the word is built

• sign (mark, token)
• -ific- (from facere, to make)
• -ance (noun suffix denoting state or quality)