annuity

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English annuite,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman annuité,^[4][2][5][6] also spelled annueté and annuyté,^[4][7] and partly directly borrowed from Medieval Latin annuitās (“annual payment”),^[6][8][4] from Latin annuus (“yearly”),^[3][4][9] from annus (“year”),^[8][4][10] with the suffix that gives English -ity.^[6][3] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1278, for an annuity or yearly rent and for the writ used to recover its arrears,^[7] and the French word annuité from about 1300.^[4] The American Heritage Dictionary traces annus to the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *at-.^[2] The OED notes that some early English forms lost the initial vowel, probably because it was taken for the indefinite article.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A yearly allowance, or a grant paid in yearly instalments: about 1412, in Hoccleve's Regement of Princes.^[4][6] The OED's first record of the legal sense, the grant of a yearly sum from a person's land or estate, is a document of 1425.^[4] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word belonged to law: the grant of a yearly sum for life, for ever or for a set term.^[4] In 1603 Malynes used it in finance for an investment that pays the investor a series of yearly sums until death;^[4] Hoad dates this sense to the 17th century and Etymonline to the 1690s.^[11][8] From 1600 it was used figuratively for anything received regularly.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as a yearly rent paid for life or for a term of years, and distinguished it from a rent, which comes out of land, while an annuity charges only the grantor or his heirs.^[12] In the United States from 1797 it meant the yearly supply of goods or money that the government issued to an Indigenous people under a treaty, a sense now historical.^[4] Today the payments may also come quarterly or at other regular intervals.^[3][13]

Timeline

• c. 1412 – a yearly allowance or grant.^[4][6]
• 1425 – in law, the grant of a yearly sum from an estate.^[4]
• 1600 – figurative, something received regularly.^[4]
• 1603 – an investment that pays the investor yearly sums for life.^[4]
• 1797 – in the United States, goods or money paid yearly to an Indigenous people under a treaty.^[4]
• 18th century – annuitant, a person who receives an annuity.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fixed sum paid every year, or at other regular intervals, for a set period, for life or in perpetuity.^[3][13][4]
2. The right to receive, or the duty to pay, such a sum.^[13][3]
3. An investment or insurance contract that pays the holder a regular income, bought with a single payment or with instalments: She used her savings to buy an annuity at sixty-five.^[13][3][4]

Word family

• annuitant
• deferred annuity
• immediate annuity
• life annuity

Related words

• per annum
• annual
• perennial
• annals

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins