Organise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To arrange or put things in a structured order ; to coordinate tasks or people to work together efficiently
2. To systematize elements or parts in a planned way ; to manage or oversee the planning and execution of activities
3. To order and classify items or ideas logically ; to lead or facilitate the collective efforts of a group towards a goal

Etymology: "Organise" comes to English from Middle French "organiser," and its ultimate root is the Greek "organon," meaning "tool" or "instrument." The Greek word described anything used to do a job, and it gave Latin "organum," which in turn passed into Old French as "organe." Because the body's parts work like tools, the sense of "organ" as a bodily structure grew from the same root, and the word eventually came to suggest any structured whole made of working parts. The verb tracks that idea. To organise something is to give its separate parts a working relationship, so that each piece does its job within a whole. That is why the sense of arranging or managing grew naturally out of the older picture of a body or machine functioning as a unified system. The English spelling "organise" follows the French "-iser" ending, which the British tradition has kept, while American usage typically writes "organize" with a "z."

Synonyms: arrange, systematize, order, coordinate, classify

Antonyms: disorganize, scatter, dismantle, confuse, chaos