Switches

How to spell switches

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce switches

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does switches mean?

1. nounMore than one device or lever used to open, close, or redirect an electrical circuit or other connection.
2. verbChanges from one thing, position, or setting to another, often quickly.

Switches in a sentence

• noun

  The control panel was covered in rows of small plastic switches.

• verb

  She switches between two laptops while editing the report.

• noun

  The electrician labelled all the switches in the fuse cupboard.

• verb

  The heating system switches off automatically at midnight.

Where does switches come from?

Language of origin: Other

The base word 'switch' first appears in English in the 1500s meaning a thin, flexible twig or riding rod of the kind used to flick a horse or strike a person. Its exact source is uncertain, but it most closely resembles words in Low German and early Dutch such as 'swick' or 'zwick', describing a thin springy stick, and the connection points to a Germanic family of words for something that bends and snaps back. From the idea of a slender rod that moves, the sense travelled to the movable rails that divert a train (a railway 'switch') in the 1800s, and then to the small lever that turns an electrical circuit on or off. The plural and verb form 'switches' simply adds '-es' because the word ends in '-ch', and that '-tch-es' cluster, rather than the meaning, is the main thing a writer has to remember. The same flick-and-spring image survives in the verb, where to 'switch' is to change quickly from one thing to another.

How the word is built

• switch (twig, lever, control)
• -es (plural / third-person singular suffix)