Undertaking

How to spell undertaking

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce undertaking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does undertaking mean?

1. nounA task, project, or enterprise that someone has committed to carrying out.
2. nounA formal promise or binding commitment to do something.
3. nounThe business or profession of arranging and managing funerals.

Undertaking in a sentence

• Renovating the entire office was a major undertaking for the small team.

• The contractor signed a written undertaking to finish the work by spring.

• His family had been in the undertaking trade for three generations.

• Launching a new product line is a costly undertaking for any business.

• The court accepted his undertaking not to leave the country before the trial.

• She left nursing to learn the undertaking business from her uncle.

Where does undertaking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the everyday verb 'undertake', which combines the native prefix 'under-' with 'take', a verb English borrowed from Old Norse 'taka', meaning 'to grasp or seize'. The literal idea of 'taking something under oneself' developed into the figurative sense of accepting a duty or shouldering a responsibility, and by the 1300s 'undertake' meant to commit oneself to a task. Adding the noun-forming suffix '-ing' produced 'undertaking', first recorded around the fifteenth century to name the thing one has taken on, whether a project or a binding promise. A specialised branch grew in the eighteenth century when an 'undertaker' came to mean one who manages funerals, so 'undertaking' also names the funeral business. The spelling is mercifully regular for native speakers; the only real wobble is remembering it is one solid word and not 'under taking'.

How the word is built

• under- (beneath, taking on)
• take (Old English tacan: to grasp, accept)
• -ing (noun/gerund suffix)