append

Etymology

It is first recorded as inherited from Middle English appenden (“to belong, pertain”), also apenden,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French apendre (“to depend on, belong to, hang”),^[5][2][3][6] and directly borrowed from Latin appendō (“to cause to hang, weigh out”),^[2] from ad- (“to”) and pendō (“to hang, cause to hang, weigh”),^[2][7][8] from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pen- (“to draw, stretch, spin”).^[2][7] The OED notes that the Latin compound is only transitive in the classical language, and explains the French intransitive use by pendeō (“to hang, be suspended”).^[5] It takes the modern transitive verb as the same word in form, re-adopted from Latin after the older use had died out, perhaps through French appendre;^[5][2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Weekley give the French form as the source,^[9][10] and Barnhart, Hoad, the American Heritage Dictionary and Dictionary.com the Latin alone.^{[8][11][7][12]}

Earliest recorded meaning

To belong to someone as a possession or right, or to be a proper part of something, used with to: about 1400, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.^[5] Etymonline dates this use to the late 14th century,^[2] and Benson's concordance has it once in Gower.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The older intransitive use, "to belong", is the only one that Mayhew and Skeat and Benson's concordance record.^[3][13] The OED's note calls it obsolete before 1500, though its sense history runs to 1591.^[5] Hoad records the word in Scots in the 15th century and in English from the 17th.^[11] The transitive verb appears in 1646, in Sir T. Browne, for hanging one thing on another as a pendant,^[5][8][2] and Johnson (1755) defined it so, adding "to add to something as an accessory".^[14] Appendage, formed from the verb, follows in 1649.^[8] From 1781 the verb was used of joining or annexing something.^[5] From 1843, in J. S. Mill, it was used of adding a passage in writing as a supplement,^[5][2] which is now the first sense in the American Heritage Dictionary.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – to belong to, to be a proper part of (obsolete by 1591).^[5]
• 1646 – to hang on, attach as a pendant.^[5][8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates this sense to about 1509.^[9]
• 1781 – to attach or annex as an accessory.^[5]
• 1843 – to add in writing as a supplement or appendix.^[5][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To add something as a supplement or appendix, especially at the end of a piece of writing: She appended a short glossary to her thesis.^[7][9][15]
2. To attach or hang one thing on another: A wax seal was appended to the charter.^[7][9][15]
3. (obsolete, c. 1400–1591) To belong or pertain to.^[5][3][4]

Word family

• appendant
• unappended
• appendage

Related words

• appendix
• pendant

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins