advertising

Etymology

It is formed from English advertise + -ing.^[2][3][4] Advertise is from Middle English advertisen (“to take notice of”),^[5][6][7] from Middle French advertiss-, the stem of advertir, a variant of Old French avertir (“to warn”),^[5][2][4][8] from Vulgar Latin *advertiō, beside Latin advertō (“to turn toward, give heed”),^[5][4][8] from ad- (“to, toward”) and vertō (“to turn”).^[5][6] The OED thinks the English verb owes much of its existence to the earlier advertisement, since other French verbs of this type were borrowed in their short stem form, as in convert and divert.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Warning, notification or information: 1525, in a chiefly Scottish use, in a document printed in the Douglas Book.^[2] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1520–30.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense follows the verb's early meaning "to notify, warn", and the OED records it only until 1602.^[2] The adjective had a similar early life: Johnson (1755) defined it as "active in giving intelligence; monitory", calling it a word no longer in use and quoting Shakespeare's Measure for Measure,^[9] where the OED glosses it "attending, attentive".^[2] The modern sense, publishing an announcement in a public medium, appears in 1717, in the Daily Courant,^[2][3] shortly after the verb's own sense of 1710, and the word was used of the trade by 1759, in Johnson's Idler.^[2] Ayto places the beginning of the commercial meaning of advertise in the mid 18th century,^[8] Etymonline in the late 18th.^[6]

Timeline

• 1525 – warning, notification (obsolete by 1602).^[2]
• before 1616 – adjective, attentive, in Shakespeare (obsolete).^[2][9]
• 1717 – publication of an announcement in a public medium; advertisements collectively.^[2][3]
• 1726 – adjective, that issues an advertisement.^[2]
• 1759 – the activity or trade of producing advertisements.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The promotion of goods or services by paid announcements in print, broadcast or other public media.^[10][3][2]
2. The business or profession of creating such announcements: She went into advertising after college.^[10][3][2]
3. Advertisements collectively: The free paper is nearly all advertising.^[10][3][2]

Adjective

1. That advertises; issuing an advertisement.^[2]
2. (obsolete) Attentive, or giving warning.^[2][9]

Word family

• counteradvertising
• advertising agency

Related words

• advertisement
• advertise
• advert
• ad
• adverse
• adversity

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster and Collins record the less common spelling advertizing, Collins as sometimes American.^[3][10] The OED notes that from an early date the verb's ending was taken as or assimilated to -ize.^[2] Johnson's headword shows both stresses, Adve'rtising and Adverti'sing,^[9] and Ayto notes that in the 16th and 17th centuries the verb was stressed on its second syllable.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins