Unveiling

How to spell unveiling

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce unveiling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unveiling mean?

1. nounA formal ceremony or occasion at which something is revealed or shown publicly for the first time.
2. verbPresent participle of unveil: removing a cover from something or making it known for the first time.

Unveiling in a sentence

• noun

  The unveiling of the new sculpture drew a large crowd to the square.

• verb

  The architect spent the morning unveiling the model of the new library.

• noun

  Reporters gathered for the unveiling of the company's latest phone.

• verb

  The report is unveiling details that the board had kept quiet for months.

Where does unveiling come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The heart of this word is veil, which English took from the Old French voile or veil, itself descended from the Latin velum, meaning a cloth, a sail, or a covering. In Latin a velum could be the awning stretched over a theatre or the sail that caught the wind, and the same word came to describe any cloth used to screen or hide something. English added the native prefix un-, which reverses an action, to make unveil, literally to take the covering off, a verb recorded from the late 1500s. Adding the suffix -ing produced unveiling, used both as a verbal noun for the act of revealing and as the name of a ceremony where a statue, plaque, or product is dramatically uncovered. The single l in the root is the usual spelling trap, since writers sometimes expect it to double before -ing.

How the word is built

• un- (reverse, undo)
• veil (covering cloth, from Latin velum)
• -ing (noun/verbal suffix)