Township

How to spell township

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce township

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does township mean?

1. nounA subdivision of land or local government, smaller than a county and often used for administrative or survey purposes.

Township in a sentence

• The new road runs along the eastern edge of the township.

• Property taxes in this township pay for road repairs and the local school.

Where does township come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word joins two old English elements. The first, 'town', descends from the Old English 'tun', which originally meant an enclosure or a fenced piece of ground around a homestead, and only later came to mean a cluster of dwellings. The second part, '-ship', comes from Old English 'scipe', a suffix that names a condition, quality, or area of jurisdiction, the same ending found in 'friendship' and 'hardship'. Put together, 'township' first described the territory and inhabitants belonging to a single town or parish, an administrative unit of land. The sense travelled to North America, where it became a formal grid unit of surveyed land, and to South Africa, where it took on its own distinct meaning. Because '-ship' is so familiar, the spelling rarely trips writers up, though the join between 'town' and 'ship' is worth picturing.

How the word is built

• town (from Old English tun: enclosure, settlement)
• -ship (suffix denoting state, condition, or jurisdiction)