Subsidies

How to spell subsidies

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce subsidies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does subsidies mean?

1. nounSums of money granted by a government or authority to support an industry, service, or group, usually to keep prices low or encourage activity.

Subsidies in a sentence

• The government cut farm subsidies to balance the budget.

• Many renewable energy projects rely on public subsidies to stay viable.

Where does subsidies come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin subsidium, which originally meant 'a reserve' or 'support', and in military use named the line of troops kept sitting in reserve behind the front. It was formed from sub-, meaning 'under' or 'behind', and the verb sedere, meaning 'to sit', so the literal idea was a body of help held back and ready to support those in front. By extension the word came to mean any kind of aid or financial assistance, and English borrowed the singular 'subsidy' through Anglo-French in the late 1300s, at first for a grant of money voted to the crown. The same sedere root sits quietly inside relatives such as 'reside', 'sediment', and 'session'. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle vowel and the plural ending: the singular ends in -y, which shifts to -ies in the plural, so writers must remember the y becomes ie before the s.

How the word is built

• sub- (under, in reserve)
• sid (from Latin sedere: to sit)
• -y (noun-forming)
• -es (plural)