Territorial

How to spell territorial

11 letters · 5 syllables

3 of the 35 people asked to spell territorial in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

How to pronounce territorial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does territorial mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to a particular area of land, region, or the territory of a state.
2. adjectiveInclined to defend an area, possession, or role from others, as an animal or person might.

Territorial in a sentence

• The two nations argued over a long-standing territorial dispute.

• The dog became territorial whenever a stranger approached the garden.

• The new map redrew several territorial boundaries across the region.

• He was oddly territorial about his desk and refused to share it.

Where does territorial come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin territorium, which named the district or stretch of land that belonged to and surrounded a town. That noun was built on terra, meaning 'earth' or 'land', the same root that gives us 'terrain', 'terrace' and 'terrier' (a dog that digs into the earth). The adjective form territorialis described anything pertaining to such land, and English adopted 'territorial' in the seventeenth century to mean 'relating to a territory'. Over time it broadened to cover political claims over land and, more vividly, the instinct of animals and people to defend a patch as their own. The spelling trap sits in the middle: the double 'r' from terra and the unstressed 'tor' that swallows its vowel, plus the '-ial' ending that adults often shorten to '-al'.

How the word is built

• territor- (from Latin territorium, the land around a town, built on terra: earth, land)
• -ial (adjective suffix: relating to)