Training

How to spell training

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce training

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does training mean?

1. nounThe process of teaching or learning a skill, behaviour, or body of knowledge through practice and instruction.

Training in a sentence

• The new recruits completed two weeks of safety training before starting work.

• Regular training helped her finish the marathon without injury.

Where does training come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin verb trahere, meaning 'to pull, drag, or draw along'. From a related form English received the Old French word trainer (also spelled trahiner), which meant to drag or trail something behind you, an idea still visible in a 'train' of carriages or the trailing 'train' of a gown. By the late Middle Ages the verb had taken on the figurative sense of drawing a person or animal along a desired course, hence guiding, disciplining, and instructing them. The noun 'training', the act of teaching skills through practice, grew naturally from that verb and became common in English from the 1500s onward. The spelling is straightforward once you remember it is simply the verb 'train' with '-ing' added, so the silent partner here is only the single 'n' before the suffix.

How the word is built

• train (to draw out, instruct)
• -ing (noun/gerund suffix)