Word of the Day

: February 17, 2025

pertain

verb per-TAYN

What It Means

To pertain to someone or something is to relate, refer, or have a connection to that person or thing.

// That law pertains only to people who live in this state.

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pertain in Context

"There are certain rules of conduct that pertain to office dressing no matter how lax your HR department may be. No shirt, no shoes, no job. But keeping it professional doesn’t have to mean feeling stuffy or boring ..." — Aemilia Madden, The Cut, 20 Nov. 2024

Did You Know?

Pertain comes to English via Anglo-French from the Latin verb pertinēre, meaning "to reach to" or "to belong." Pertinēre, in turn, was formed by combining the prefix per- (meaning "through") and tenēre ("to hold"). Tenēre is a popular root in English words and often manifests with the -tain spelling that can be seen in pertain. Other descendants include abstain, contain, detain, maintain, obtain, retain, and sustain, to name a few of the more common ones. Not every -tain word has tenēre in its ancestry, though. Ascertain, attain, and certain are certainly exceptions. And a few tenēre words don't follow the usual pattern: tenacious and tenure are two.