amulet

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin amulētum (“a charm worn against evil or disease”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} though Hoad, Skeat and Weekley derive it through French amulette,^[8][9][10] and Barnhart and Dictionary.com allow a route through French.^[3][11] An isolated Middle English amalettys of the mid-15th century may also have come through French.^[4][2] The Latin word, used by Varro and Pliny, is of unknown origin.^{[5][2][3][12][6]} The American Heritage Dictionary suggests that it first meant a medicinal or magical preparation containing starch, from amulum (“starch”) with the suffix -ētum,^[13] and Klein likewise explains it as food made of starch flour, its sense then influenced by āmōlior (“to carry away, remove”).^[14] Etymonline and Weekley instead think of a relation to that verb, "to avert".^[4][10] Partridge compares an Egyptian word for an amulet.^[15] A comparison with a modern Arabic word for a bearer, used of a cord that secures a small Qur'an on the breast, is rejected by the OED as a chance resemblance,^[2] and Skeat also notes that the Arabic origin has been given up.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A charm worn against evil or disease: 1584 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[3][7] and 1601 in the OED, in Holland's translation of Pliny.^[2] The OED treats the 15th-century examples as doubtful and finds no regular use before 1600.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word was used, according to Weekley, to translate Ancient Greek φυλακτήριον (phulaktḗrion), the source of phylactery.^[10] English soon used amulet figuratively, for a preservative or protection, from 1621, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.^[2][5] Medicine had its own use from 1718 to 1753, for any remedy whose action was hidden.^[2] Johnson (1755) stressed the medical side of the word, defining it as something hung on the body to prevent or cure a disease,^[16] and in 1773 he added the Latin form amoletum, explained as what takes away evil.^[16] Farmer and Henley record a slang use for the vagina.^[17]

Timeline

• mid-15th century – amalettys, an isolated and doubtful use.^[4][2]
• 1584 – a charm worn against evil or disease.^[3][7] The OED's first quotation is of 1601.^[2]
• 1621 – figurative, a preservative or protection.^[2]
• 1718 – a medicine that works in a hidden way (last recorded 1753).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small object or piece of jewellery worn as a charm against evil, disease or injury: She wore a silver amulet on a cord around her neck.^{[7][13][12][6]}
2. Figuratively, a protection or preservative: His good humour was an amulet against gossip.^[2][5]

Word family

• amuletic

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d 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 Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
15. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
16. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com