admittance

Etymology

It is formed from English admit + -ance.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Etymonline notes that a word taken from Latin would have ended in -ence, and that French uses accès in this sense.^[4] The OED compares an isolated 15th-century record of Old French admittans (“acknowledgement”), the Anglo-Norman form, and the earlier nouns admission and admitting;^[2] Etymonline adds admissure, used in this sense from the mid-15th century.^[4] Admit comes from Latin admittō (“to let in, allow to enter”), formed from ad- (“to”) and mittō (“to let go, send”).^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The admitting of something as valid; acceptance, sanction: 1534, in J. Heywood's Play of Loue.^[2] Etymonline and Dictionary.com date the word only to the 1580s.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The sense of entering a place, or permission to enter, followed in 1537, in a letter of J. Husee;^[2] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1536.^[3] From 1550 the word was used of admission to an office, group or status.^[2] From 1589, in Puttenham, it also meant acknowledging that something is true.^[2] In law, from 1610, it was the act by which a copyholder was put in possession of land.^[2] Shakespeare's "of great admittance" in The Merry Wives of Windsor meant being well received in society, a rare sense last recorded in 1772;^[2] Brewer explained it as freedom or licence.^[7] Johnson (1755) gave "the act of admitting; allowance or permission to enter" and "the power or right of entering", quoting Cymbeline: "'tis gold which buys admittance".^[8] In 1887 O. Heaviside gave the word an electrical sense, the reciprocal of impedance.^[2] The figurative senses have since passed to admission, leaving admittance mostly for physical entry.^[4][5]

Timeline

• 1534 – acceptance of something as valid (now rare).^[2]
• 1536 – permission to enter a place.^[3] The OED's first quotation, from 1537, is in a letter of J. Husee.^[2]
• 1550 – admission to an office, membership or status.^[2]
• 1589 – acknowledgement that something is true.^[2]
• 1610 – in law, the act putting a copyholder in possession of land.^[2]
• before 1616 – social acceptability, in Shakespeare (obsolete by 1772).^[2]
• 1887 – in electricity, the reciprocal of impedance.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Permission or the right to enter a place; entry: Late arrivals were refused admittance to the hall.^{[3][9][10][2]}
2. The act of admitting or letting in.^[9][10][5]
3. (electricity) The reciprocal of impedance in an alternating current circuit, a measure of how easily current flows; symbol Y.^[9][3][2][5]
4. (law, historical) The act of giving possession of a copyhold.^[3][2]
5. (rare) Acceptance of something as valid, or acknowledgement of its truth; admission.^[2][5]

Word family

• readmittance

Related words

• admit
• admission
• admissible

Usage notes

In its figurative senses the word has largely given way to admission, and it is now used mostly of entry to a place.^[4][5] Dictionary.com refers it to entrance for a comparison of synonyms.^[6]

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Brewer, E. Cobham (1898), Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, new ed., London: Cassell
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin