Subsidized

How to spell subsidized

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce subsidized

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does subsidized mean?

1. verbSupported financially, usually by a government or organisation, to keep a cost lower than it would otherwise be.

Subsidized in a sentence

• The government subsidized the cost of public transport for students.

• Many farmers rely on heavily subsidized fuel to stay profitable.

Where does subsidized come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of 'subsidize', which traces back to the Latin noun subsidium, meaning 'support', 'aid', or 'a body of reserve troops kept in reserve'. That noun was built from sub, meaning 'under' or 'in reserve', and sedere, meaning 'to sit', so the literal image is of forces sitting in the rear, ready to step in and prop up the front line. English took the noun 'subsidy' in the late 1300s for a grant of money, especially money voted to the crown, and the verb 'subsidize' was coined from it in the 1700s to mean 'to support with a payment'. The same sedere root sits quietly inside many English words about sitting and settling, such as 'sediment', 'reside', and 'sedentary'. The spelling trap is the soft 's' sound spelled with an 's' in the middle (subsi-) and the '-ized' ending, since writers can be tempted to insert an extra letter or hesitate over the z.

How the word is built

• sub- (under)
• sid (from sedere: to sit)
• -ize (verb suffix)
• -ed (past tense/participle)

British and American spelling

Subsidized is the American spelling. British English spells it subsidised.