What does reliance mean?
Word: Reliance
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Reliance means depending on someone or something and trusting it to help you.
Synonyms: trust, confidence
Antonyms: independence, self-sufficiency
How do you spell reliance?
Syllables: re - li - ance
Tricky part: It comes from rely, and the y turns into i before the ending. The ending is ance, not ence.
Watch out for: relience, relyance, relianse
Memory tip: Rely changes its y to i and adds ance, the same change that turns ally into alliance.
Reliance in a sentence
Example 1: Our town's reliance on one river for drinking water worries the council.
Example 2: Too much reliance on spell-check can make your own spelling weaker.
Example 3: The old man's reliance on his walking stick grew as he got older.
Fun Fact
Self-reliance was a central idea of India's freedom movement: the khadi campaign urged people to spin and weave their own cloth instead of buying imported mill cloth.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
The farmers' reliance on the monsoon makes a good weather forcast especially valuable every June.
a) especially
b) reliance
c) valuable
d) forcast
Show answer
d) forcast. Reliance is right as printed; the slip is in the word for a weather prediction, which has lost the e after its r.
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word reliance as used in the sentence:
The team's heavy reliance on its captain worried the coach before the final.
a) anger
b) dependence
c) doubt
d) patience
Show answer
b) dependence. Leaning on the captain for everything is depending on him, so dependence fits.
Mingle-Mangle
Unscramble the jumbled word in the sentence and choose the correct word:
Years of acnileer on a single supplier left the factory helpless when the trucks stopped coming.
a) reliance
b) relevance
c) resilience
d) radiance
Show answer
a) reliance. Radiance needs a d and relevance a v, and resilience needs an s and has no a; only reliance uses all eight letters.
Spell-o-Spell
Only one of these words is spelt correctly. Choose its meaning:
1. alleigance 2. reliance 3. asurance 4. guidence
a) help and advice on what to do
b) loyal support for a leader or country
c) a promise that something will happen
d) the act of counting on someone for support
Show answer
d) the act of counting on someone for support. The peers go wrong in three different ways, a wrong vowel, a missing s and two letters swapped; reliance has none of these faults.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Reliance on a calculator for every sum shows that a student ____.
a) is very quick at mental sums
b) lends it to friends
c) has never owned one
d) depends on it too much
Show answer
d) depends on it too much
2. Which sentence shows reliance on someone?
a) Riya beats Anu in every maths test.
b) Riya and Anu walk home after maths.
c) Riya counts on Anu to explain every maths sum.
d) Riya sits next to Anu in maths class.
Show answer
c) Riya counts on Anu to explain every maths sum.
