Placement

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈpleɪsmənt/

Definitions

1. The act of putting something in a particular position or location, or the position itself
2. The process of arranging items in specific locations or assigning them to roles or tasks, and the resultant location or role itself
3. The act of arranging objects or people in designated spots or roles, as well as the final outcome of that arrangement

Etymology: "Placement" is a straightforward formation: the English noun "place" combined with the suffix "-ment". That suffix has a long pedigree, passing from the Latin "-mentum" (a noun-forming ending that turns an action into its result, as in "monumentum", a reminder) through Old French into Middle English, where it became one of the most productive ways of forming nouns in English. The Latin ancestry of the suffix reaches back further still, to Proto-Indo-European forms that formed nouns from verbs. The word itself, though, is simply "place" plus that ending. The suffix's job is to name the outcome or result of an act: a "judgment" is what results from judging, and a "placement" is what results from placing things in their spots, whether that is a player's position on a team or the arrangement of furniture in a room.

Synonyms: position, location, arrangement, site, setting

Antonyms: displacement, removal, dislocation