Standings

How to spell standings

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce standings

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does standings mean?

1. nounThe ranked positions of teams or competitors in a league or competition.

Standings in a sentence

• The team climbed three places in the league standings after the weekend win.

• Reporters checked the latest standings before writing the match preview.

Where does standings come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English verb 'standan', meaning 'to stand' or 'to occupy a fixed position', which traces back to a Germanic root shared with Dutch 'staan' and German 'stehen', all carrying the basic idea of remaining upright in one place. From the literal sense of physical position came the figurative sense of one's status, rank, or position in society, a use well established in English by the late medieval period. The suffix '-ing' here is the old noun-forming ending that turns the verb into a thing or state, so a 'standing' became a rank or reputation. By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the plural 'standings' settled into sporting language to mean the ordered table of teams or competitors. The spelling is straightforward once you see it is simply 'stand' plus the familiar '-ings' ending, with no doubled letters or silent traps.

How the word is built

• stand (to be positioned/ranked)
• -ing (noun-forming suffix)
• -s (plural)