Viewing

How to spell viewing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce viewing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does viewing mean?

1. nounThe act of looking at or watching something, such as television or a film.
2. nounA scheduled occasion to inspect something in person, such as a property for sale or rent.

Viewing in a sentence

• Evening viewing on the main channels is dominated by quiz shows.

• We booked a viewing of the flat for Saturday morning.

• The documentary makes for compelling viewing on a quiet night.

• The estate agent arranged a private viewing before the open house.

Where does viewing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The core of this word is the verb 'view', which English took from Old French in the 1400s. The Old French noun veue (later vue) meant 'a sight' or 'an act of seeing', and it descended from the verb veoir 'to see', which goes straight back to the Latin videre, meaning 'to see'. That same Latin root gives us a large family of familiar words, including 'video', 'vision', 'evident', and 'review', all of which share the idea of seeing. The English ending -ing, a native Germanic suffix, was then attached to make a noun for the act of looking at something, or a present participle of the verb. The spelling trap sits in the middle: the silent 'ie' followed by 'w' in 'view' has to be carried through unchanged, so writers must resist smoothing it to 'veiw' or 'viewng'.

How the word is built

• view (from Latin videre: to see)
• -ing (forms a noun or present participle)