apprenticeship

Etymology

It is formed from English apprentice + -ship,^[2][3][4][5] and replaced the older apprenticehood, formed with -hood in the late 14th century.^[3][2] apprentice, recorded from about 1300, is from Old French aprentiz (“someone learning”),^[3][6] from aprendre (“to learn; to teach”), contracted from Latin apprehendō (“to take hold of, grasp”), which in Medieval Latin also meant "to learn".^[3] Barnhart traces it through Vulgar Latin *apprēnditicius (“learner of a trade”) to the contracted Latin form apprēndō (“to grasp mentally, learn”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In a transferred or figurative sense, an initiation or period of learning: 1592, in R. Greene's Disputation on conny-catchers.^[2] The literal sense, service as an apprentice in a trade, is recorded from 1617 in the current OED; its 1989 edition had 1612.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline dates the word to the 1590s, covering both the legal condition of an apprentice and the learning of a trade from a master.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the years which an apprentice is to pass under a master", quoting South on men who entered the ministry "without serving any apprenticeship".^[5] The OED records the sense "the period for which an apprentice is bound" from Cowley, before 1667, and since 1780 a period of seven years, the usual term of an indenture,^[2] a sense the Shorter Oxford marks as archaic.^[4] In South Africa, apprenticeship was the historical name for a system of forced labour in which a former slave or a slave's child was bound to a master for a fixed period, recorded from 1816.^[8]

Timeline

• 1592 – a figurative apprenticeship, in Greene.^[2]
• 1617 – service as an apprentice in a trade (1612 in the OED of 1989).^[2][7]
• before 1667 – the period for which an apprentice is bound.^[2]
• 1780 – a period of seven years.^[2]
• 1816 – South Africa, a system of forced labour.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The position or service of an apprentice; training in a trade or craft under a skilled worker, usually under an agreement: He served his apprenticeship with a printer.^[9][2][3]
2. The time during which a person is an apprentice.^[9][2][4][5]
3. Any period of early training or experience; a novice's first years: Her apprenticeship as a writer was spent on local newspapers.^[9][2]
4. (archaic) A period of seven years.^[2][4]
5. (South Africa, historical) A system of forced labour binding former slaves or their children to a master for a fixed term.^[8]

Related words

• apprentice
• prentice
• apprehend
• apprenticehood

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 f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles, Dictionary Unit for South African English, https://dsae.co.za
9. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster