anonymity

Etymology

It is formed from English anonymous + -ity,^[2][3] or, according to Etymonline, from anonym, a nameless person, with the same suffix.^[4] The OED, which revised the entry in 2022, explains it as Latin anonymus (“nameless”) or its source Ancient Greek ἀνώνυμος (anṓnumos, “having no name, nameless”) with the English suffix,^[5] and Dictionary.com allows that it may instead be borrowed from French anonymité,^[6] which the OED records in French from 1778.^[5] The Greek adjective is formed from ἀν- (an-, “without”) and the Aeolic form ὄνυμα (ónuma, “name”) of ὄνομα (ónoma).^[5][4][7] An earlier word for the same state, anonymousness, is recorded from 1802.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

An anonymous person or thing: 1695, in a work by S. Hill.^[5] The usual sense, the state of being nameless or unidentified, is first recorded in 1820, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine,^[5] the date that Etymonline and Merriam-Webster give for the word,^[4][8] while the Shorter Oxford dates it to the early 19th century and Dictionary.com to 1810–20.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

From 1820 anonymity meant the fact of being nameless or unidentified, especially of a writing whose author is not known, and later also the condition of a person who cannot be identified or traced.^[5][8] From 1920 it was used more widely of a lack of individual or striking features, or of being generally unknown and uncelebrated, an impersonality,^[5][2] a sense that follows the parallel development of anonymous, used from 1860 of a person who is not well known and since 1937 of something bland and indistinguishable.^[5]

Timeline

• 1695 – an anonymous person or thing.^[5]
• 1802 – anonymousness recorded in the same sense as the later anonymity.^[4]
• 1820 – the state of being nameless or unidentified.^[5][4][8]
• 1920 – lack of individual features; impersonality.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The state of being anonymous: of having one's name withheld or unknown, or of being impossible to identify: The donor gave the money on condition of anonymity.^[8][5][2]
2. Lack of individual or distinctive features; impersonality: the anonymity of the identical office blocks.^[8][5][2]
3. A person or thing that is anonymous.^[8][5]

Word family

• nonanonymity

Related words

• anon
• anonym
• anonymous
• anonymousness
• name
• synonym

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster