Successive

How to spell successive

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce successive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does successive mean?

1. adjectiveFollowing one after another in an uninterrupted sequence.

Successive in a sentence

• The company posted profits for three successive quarters.

• Heavy rain fell on five successive days last week.

Where does successive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin successivus, meaning 'following in order' or 'coming after'. It was built on the verb succedere, which combined sub-, here in the sense of 'after' or 'up to', with cedere, meaning 'to go' or 'to move'; the literal idea was of one thing going up to or stepping into the place of another. The same Latin verb gave English the closely related words 'succeed', 'success', and 'succession', all sharing that notion of one thing or person following another. English adopted 'successive' in the late 1300s through Old French and medieval Latin, and it has always carried the meaning of items that come one after the other in an unbroken series. The spelling trap lives in the double letters: the doubled c (from the cess root) and the doubled s, which catch many writers who expect only a single consonant.

How the word is built

• suc- (sub-: under, after)
• cess (from cedere: to go, move)
• -ive (adjective suffix)