Other forms: promotions
A promotion is a move up — a better title, more money, more people who answer to you. The email saying you are now the manager, the handshake at the door, the desk that has shifted nearer the window.
The word does not stay in the office. A shop runs a promotion on winter coats, two for one with a banner across the window, and a film company spends a summer on promotion, sending its actors round the studios. In British sport a club wins promotion when it finishes near the top and moves up a division; in chess a pawn that reaches the far row takes promotion and comes back as a queen. You get a promotion or win one — you do not make one. The verb is promote and the person is promoted, never promotioned.
1nounpromotionA move to a higher position in an organisation.~43%
“She got a promotion after three years at the same desk.”
synonyms: advancement, step up
2nounmarketingA special offer or campaign run to sell more of something.~2%
“The shop is running a promotion on winter coats.”
3nounpublicityThe work of making something known so that people will buy it or watch it.~53%
“He spent the summer on promotion for the film.”
4nounchessIn chess, the moment a pawn reaches the far row and becomes a stronger piece.~2%
“The whole game turned on a quiet pawn promotion.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 139 sentences found in the wild and placed 118 of them on a sense (21 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
English built promotion out of promote and -ion, and promote goes back to Latin prōmoveō, to move forward. That is the whole of it. Whatever gets promoted — a sergeant, a football club, a pawn on the last row — has been moved forward a place.
Latin
prōmotiō
Old French
promocion
English, today
promotion
From Middle English -, from Old French promocion, from Latin prōmotiō, from la + prōmoveō. Late Middle English -, from Old French promocion, from Latin prōmotiō, from Latin prōmoveō (“to move forward”). Equivalent to promote + ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA