adhesion

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French adhesion, now adhésion,^[2][3][4] and directly borrowed from Latin adhaesiō (“an adhering, a sticking to”),^[2][5][6][7] from adhaereō (“to adhere”),^[2][5][3] formed from ad- (“to”) and haereō (“to stick”), and adhere and hesitation are related.^[6] Watkins refers the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *ghais- (“to adhere, hesitate”), but Etymonline notes that some linguists reject the link and that de Vaan offers no etymology.^[6] The French word is recorded for allegiance from 1372 and for physical sticking from about 1380.^[2] Later Latin had the sense of adherence to a belief, from Augustine in the 5th century, and of a morbid union of surfaces in 1582.^[2] The word also has counterparts in Spanish adhesión and Italian adesione.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Steadfast commitment to a person or thing: before 1500, in a translation of A. Chartier's Traité de l'Esperance.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the Shorter Oxford also put the word in the 15th century,^[7][8] while Barnhart dates it to 1624 and Etymonline to the 1620s,^[5][6] and the Dictionary.com range is 1615–25.^[9] Etymonline agrees that the first uses were of persons.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The sense of loyalty came first, and the physical sense of sticking to something followed in 1615, in H. Crooke's Mikrokosmographia.^[2] By the 18th century the two were being separated: Johnson (1755) wrote that adhesion was generally used in the natural and adherence in the metaphorical sense, and contrasted the adhesion of iron to the magnet with the adherence of a client to his patron, though he allowed the figurative use too.^[10][6] Collins still calls adhesion the preferred term for sticking or holding fast.^[11] Medicine took the word early, for abnormal union of organs in 1634, in T. Johnson's translation of Paré, for a band of tissue joining two parts in 1698, and for the healing together of a wound's edges in 1793.^[2] Physics used it from 1786 for attraction between surfaces or between molecules of different substances,^[2] and the frictional grip of a wheel on a rail or road dates from the mid-19th century.^[8] The diplomatic sense of formally accepting a treaty, found in French from 1762, is recorded in English from 1815.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1500 – steadfast commitment, allegiance.^[2]
• 1614 – attachment, alliance (obsolete after 1779).^[2]
• 1615 – the act or state of physically sticking to something.^[2]
• 1634 – in medicine, abnormal attachment of one organ or surface to another.^[2]
• 1646 – a substance that adheres to something (obsolete after 1718).^[2]
• 1698 – in medicine, an abnormal structure joining two parts of the body.^[2]
• 1786 – in physics, attraction between surfaces or between molecules of different substances.^[2]
• 1793 – in medicine, the reuniting of the edges of a wound.^[2]
• 1815 – formal acceptance of a treaty or union.^[2]
• mid-19th century – the frictional grip of a wheel on a rail or road.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or state of sticking firmly to something: The damp wall spoiled the adhesion of the tiles.^{[11][3][7][2]}
2. (physics) The attraction between molecules of unlike substances in contact, as distinct from cohesion.^[11][3][2]
3. (medicine) Abnormal union of body surfaces that are normally separate, usually after inflammation; also a band of fibrous tissue joining them.^{[7][3][2][11]}
4. (medicine) The reuniting of the edges of a wound in healing.^[2][8]
5. The grip of a wheel or tyre on a surface, without skidding or slipping.^[11][8]
6. Steady attachment to a person, party, principle or idea; loyalty.^[7][11][2]
7. The formal acceptance of the terms of a treaty or of membership in a union.^[2]

Word family

• adhesional
• adhesiotomy
• nonadhesion

Related words

• adhesive
• adhere
• adherence
• adherent
• cohesion
• hesitation
• hesitate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins