Union

How to spell union

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce union

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does union mean?

1. nounThe act of joining separate things together, or the state of being so joined into a single whole.
2. nounAn organised association of workers formed to protect and advance their pay and conditions.

Union in a sentence

• The treaty created a political union between the two nations.

• The union negotiated a pay rise for every member.

• Their marriage marked the union of two large families.

• She paid her monthly union dues without fail.

Where does union come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin unio, meaning 'oneness' or 'a single large pearl', which was itself built on unus, the plain Latin word for 'one'. The sense of bringing many things together into a single whole was already present in late Latin, where unionem described a joining or unity. English took the word from Old French union in the late 1300s, at first to describe the spiritual or political joining of separate bodies into one. From there it broadened to cover marriages, the merging of states, and eventually the organised associations of workers that we now call trade unions. The same unus root underlies a whole family of relatives such as 'unite', 'unity', 'unique' and 'unit', and remembering that 'one-ness' lies at its heart explains why the word begins un- and not the 'you' sound its pronunciation might suggest.

How the word is built

• un- (from Latin unus: one)
• -ion (noun suffix forming a state or action)