Technique

How to spell technique

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce technique

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does technique mean?

1. nounA particular way of carrying out a task, especially one requiring practised skill.

Technique in a sentence

• The chef demonstrated a clever technique for filleting the fish.

• Her painting improved once she mastered the brushwork technique.

Where does technique come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the early 1800s straight from French technique, which functioned as both an adjective meaning 'technical' and a noun for a method of doing something. The French form rests on the Greek tekhnikos, meaning 'of art or skill', which was built on tekhne, the everyday Greek word for an art, a craft, or the practical know-how of making things. That same tekhne root sits inside a whole family of English words, including technical, technology, and architect, all of them carrying the idea of skilled making. The reason the spelling traps even confident writers is that English kept the unaltered French ending -ique rather than anglicising it, so the familiar /k/ sound is written 'que' and the 'ch' is sounded as a hard k. Holding on to that French shape, with 'tech' at the front and 'nique' at the back, is the surest way to spell it correctly.

How the word is built

• techn- (from Greek tekhne: art, skill, craft)
• -ique (French noun suffix)