publication

American  

[puhb-li-kay-shuhn] / ˌpʌb lɪˈkeɪ ʃən /

noun

• publications
  plural

1. the act of publishing a book, periodical, map, piece of music, engraving, or the like.

2. the act of bringing before the public; announcement.

3. the state or fact of being published.

4. something that is published, especially a periodical.

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publication British  

/ ˌpʌblɪˈkeɪʃən /

noun

1. the act or process of publishing a printed work

2. any printed work offered for sale or distribution

3. the act or an instance of making information public

4. the act of disseminating defamatory matter, esp by communicating it to a third person See libel slander

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonpublication
  noun
• propublication
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• publications
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of publication

1350–1400; Middle English publicacioun < Latin pūblicātiōn- (stem of pūblicātiō ) a making public, confiscation, equivalent to pūblicāt ( us ) (past participle of pūblicāre to make public ) + -iōn- -ion

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Explanation

A publication is something made to communicate with the public. Publications are usually printed on paper (like magazines and books), but online publications are delivered via the Internet. The noun publication comes from the Latin word publicare, meaning “make public.” Publication usually means something is written and made available publicly, but a company or government can submit publications of things like earnings or unemployment indexes that are communicated differently. If you are an aspiring author, publication of your work is, most likely, the Holy Grail you seek.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

publication publications

One school referred AFP to departmental authorities, while the others and the ministry had not responded by the time of publication.

From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026

There’s a tendency to think that, because one has had any success at all, be it a musical callback or a greenlit freelance piece or a short story selected for publication, that they know best.

From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2026

In the lead up to publication of the report, NHS Alliance, which represents health bosses, said the system was in chaos.

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

Critics since its publication have dismissed “The Sun Also Rises” as too macho, too ugly.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

But the process of establishing that the proper study of man is man, in the wider sense, began with the work of Vesalius and the publication of the Fabrica.

From "The Scientists" by John Gribbin

This, and a range of other publications hailing Asia’s economic “miracle” led Edwards to conclude “too many people believed the beguiling narrative” and as a consequence, “lent these economies cheap, abundant capital which was misallocated.”

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026

“I love CEOs. …But most of them would rather be accepting awards from business publications and speaking in business schools, rather than focusing on everything that can go wrong,” he said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

The study was one of the final research publications involving Peter Littlewood, a distinguished UChicago physicist who died on June 15.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 2, 2026

Celebrate Slate’s first decade: Slate began as one of the first online-only news publications.

From Slate ● Oct. 2, 2026

What killed alchemy was the insistence that experiments must be openly reported in publications which presented a clear account of what had happened, and they must then be replicated, preferably before independent witnesses.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

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Related Words

• book
• booklet
• brochure
• information
• issue
• magazine
• news
• newsletter
• newspaper
• pamphlet
• periodical

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