Signup

How to spell signup

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce signup

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does signup mean?

1. nounThe act of registering or enrolling for something, or the point at which someone does so.
2. adjectiveRelating to or used for the process of registering, as in a form or page.

Signup in a sentence

• noun

  The gym reported a surge in signup after the new year.

• adjective

  The signup form asks only for a name and an email address.

• noun

  Every signup for the newsletter earns the customer a discount code.

• adjective

  A confusing signup page can drive customers away from the website.

Where does signup come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a modern closed compound built from the verb 'sign' and the adverb particle 'up'. 'Sign' came into English in the 1200s from Old French 'signe', which descended from the Latin 'signum', meaning 'a mark, token, or signal'. The sense of writing one's name, that is, making one's personal mark, grew out of that idea of leaving a token. The particle 'up' is native Old English and here adds the sense of completing an enrolment, much as in 'team up' or 'join up'. The phrasal verb 'sign up', meaning to register or enrol, became common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially around military recruitment, and the run-together noun 'signup' (also written 'sign-up') emerged later, gaining huge currency with online registration. The spelling trap is purely about boundaries: the action stays two words ('sign up'), while the thing or the descriptor closes up into one.

How the word is built

• sign (mark, signal)
• up (particle); a closed compound formed from the phrasal verb 'sign up'