activity

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ækˈtɪv.ə.ti/, US /ækˈtɪv.ə.t̬i/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English actyvete (“active life”),^[2] borrowed from Old French activité (“power of acting”),^[3][2][4] from Medieval Latin āctīvitās (“activity”) (accusative āctīvitātem), a word of Scholastic philosophy,^[3][2] in Late Latin “the active form of a verb”,^[2] from Latin āctīvus (“active”),^[3] the source of active, from agere (“to do, drive”).^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The active or secular life: about 1400.^[3][2] The SOED dates the word to late Middle English.^[4]

Semantic evolution

“The state of being active, briskness, liveliness” is from the 1520s^[3] (1530 in the OED),^[5] and the general state of being active, the exertion of energy, from 1549.^[5] The capacity for acting on matter is from the 1540s.^[3] In the 16th and 17th centuries activity also meant physical exercise or athletics.^[5] Anything active, an active force or operation, is from 1646.^[5] An educational exercise, or the projects in a school curriculum, is by 1923.^[3][5] In science it means the rate of decay of a radioactive substance (1903) and the degree to which a substance, such as an enzyme, shows its characteristic effect (1898).^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – the active life.^[3]
• 1530 – briskness, liveliness.^[5]
• 1540s – capacity for acting on matter.^[3]
• 1549 – the state of being active.^[5]
• 1646 – an active force or operation.^[5]
• 1898 – the activity of a substance.^[5]
• 1903 – radioactivity.^[5]
• 1923 – a school activity.^[3][5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The state of being active; energetic action or movement.
2. A particular pursuit or occupation: leisure activities.
3. An educational exercise designed to teach through experience.
4. (physics) The rate of decay of a radioactive source.
5. (chemistry) The ability of a substance, such as an enzyme, to take part in a reaction.

Word family

• bioactivity
• hyperactivity
• preactivity
• superactivity
• nonactivity
• radioactivity
• self-activity

Related words

• active
• act
• action
• agent

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press