appointee

Etymology

It is formed from English appoint + -ee,^[2][3][4] after French appointé.^[2][4][5] Dictionary.com takes it as a translation of the French word.^[5] Appoint is from Old French apointier (“to make ready, arrange, settle, place”), from the phrase à point (“to the point”),^[4] with the noun point going back to Latin punctum (“a small hole made by pricking”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person appointed or nominated to an office: 1768, in a Massachusetts circular, and in the same year, as a legal term, in Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England.^[2][3] An earlier military sense is recorded from 1728, in Chambers's Cyclopaedia, to 1753; it was taken from the French appointé in Cotgrave.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The military sense of the 18th century died out by 1753.^[2] Since 1768 the word has had both of its present senses: the general one, a person appointed to an office or post, and the legal one, a person in whose favour a power of appointment over property is exercised.^[2][3][6]

Timeline

• 1728 – a military sense taken from French (obsolete by 1753).^[2]
• 1768 – a person appointed to an office; in law, a person in whose favour a power of appointment is exercised.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who is appointed to an office or position: The new appointee will take charge of the museum in March.^[7][3][8]
2. (law) A person to whom property is granted under a power of appointment.^[7][3][6]

Related words

• appoint
• appointment

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West
7. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin