Spokeswoman

How to spell spokeswoman

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce spokeswoman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does spokeswoman mean?

1. nounA woman who speaks on behalf of an organisation, government, or group, often to the press.

Spokeswoman in a sentence

• The company spokeswoman confirmed the recall in a brief statement.

• A government spokeswoman declined to comment on the negotiations.

Where does spokeswoman come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound built on the older word 'spokesman', which appeared in English during the middle of the 1500s. The first part is the curious form 'spokes-', a linking shape derived from 'spoke', the past tense of the verb 'speak', which goes back to the Old English 'specan' or 'sprecan', meaning 'to talk'. Early writers seem to have modelled it on words like 'craftsman' and 'huntsman', where a connecting 's' joins the two parts, and the 'spoke' element captured the idea of one chosen to do the speaking on behalf of others. The female form 'spokeswoman' was coined later by simply swapping in '-woman' for '-man', and the gender-neutral 'spokesperson' followed in the twentieth century. The tricky bit in spelling is that hidden middle 's': you write 'spokes', not 'spoke', because the link sound is baked into the word.

How the word is built

• spokes- (linking form of 'spoke', the past tense of speak)
• -woman (female person)