-ency

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English -encie,^[1] borrowed from Latin -entia,^{[2][3][4][5][1]} made up of -ēns, the present participle ending and source of -ent, and -ia, the source of -y.^[2][5] The American Heritage Dictionary treats it as a variant of -ence.^[6][3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Latin nouns in -entia primarily meant qualities or states.^[2][5] By a development of sense some also came to be nouns of action, and that became the normal function of the suffix in Late Latin and Romance.^[2]

Semantic evolution

English nouns in -ence, adapted through French or on French models, therefore often mean an action or process.^[2][5] Those in -ency, purely English adaptations of the Latin type, properly mean only a quality or state and the concrete senses that grew from it, as in currency beside recurrence, fluency beside confluence, and presidency beside residence.^[2][5][4][8] Where both forms of a word exist, -ence tends to go with the action and -ency with the quality, as with persistence and persistency.^[2][5] Where both mean a quality, one usually became obsolete or archaic.^[2] Some forms in -ency have become established over any in -ence, such as decency and efficiency.^[5]

Timeline

• 1570 – frequency.^[2]
• 1600 – agency.^[2]
• 1623 – currency.^[2]
• 1628 – tendency.^[2]
• 1631 – emergency.^[2]

Meanings

Suffix

1. Forming nouns for a quality or state: efficiency, fluency, permanency.^[1][7][8]
2. Forming nouns for an instance of a quality or state: inadvertencies.^[1]
3. Forming nouns for one having a quality or state, as in a title: Your Excellency.^[1]

Word family

• agency
• currency
• emergency
• frequency
• presidency
• tendency

Related words

• -ence
• -ancy
• -ent
• -cy

Usage notes

Etymonline says the small difference from -ence is that -ence can mean an act, and -ency cannot.^[4][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press