Etymologically
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add

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English adden, borrowed from Latin addere (“to add to, join, attach”),[2][3][4] perhaps through Anglo-French adder,[5] from ad- (“to”) and -dere, a combining form meaning “to put, place”,[2][3][6] from Proto-Indo-European *dhe- (“to put, set”),[2][4] the root of do.[3][5] Klein instead takes -dere from Latin dare (“to give”).[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To join or unite one thing to another as an increase: about 1374, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius,[8][3] or the late 14th century.[2]

Semantic evolution

“To say or write further” is from 1382.[8] The arithmetical sense, intransitive “to do sums”, is also from the late 14th century,[2] about 1425 in the Historical Thesaurus,[9] and “to unite numbers into one sum” is from 1509.[8] Add up is from 1754, and its intransitive sense “to make the correct total” from 1850.[2][8] To add up to, “to amount to”, is from 1933,[8] and add up figuratively, “to make sense”, by 1942.[2] The adding machine is from 1822.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1374 – to join as an increase.[8][3]
  • 1382 – to say further.[8]
  • c. 1425 – to do sums.[9]
  • 1509 – to find the sum of.[8]
  • 1754 – add up.[2]
  • 1822 – adding machine.[2]
  • 1933 – add up to.[8]
  • 1942 – add up, to make sense.[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To combine numbers to find their sum.
  2. To join or put something to another so as to increase it.
  3. To say or write in addition.
  4. To make an addition; to increase.

Word family

  • addable
  • addedly
  • unadded
  • misadd
  • superadd
  • add-in
  • add-on
  • adder
  • addend
  • addition
  • addendum
  • additive
  • do
  • date
  • tradition

Usage notes

ADD, in capitals, is the abbreviation of attention deficit disorder.[10][11]

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 f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press