archery

Pronunciation

• /ˈɑɹt͡ʃəɹiː/, /ˈɑːt͡ʃəɹiː/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English archerie, also archerye,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman archerie, also arcerie,^[4][5] and Old French archerie,^[6][7][8][9] formed from archier (“archer”) and the suffix -ie.^[7][10][4] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com name Middle French as the immediate source.^[10][3] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the third quarter of the 13th century, for the practice of shooting with a bow and for archery equipment.^[5] The French noun for the archer goes back to Late Latin arcarius, an alteration of Latin arcuarius (“maker of bows”), from arcus (“bow”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The practice or skill of an archer: about 1400 in a Wycliffite tract, which ranks "gret archerie" among the vain pastimes for which a lord might wrongly reward a clerk;^[2] Etymonline also dates the word to about 1400.^[4] The OED's first record is the sense "an archer's weapons", in the Promptorium Parvulorum of 1440, and its first quotation for the practice is from the Ludus Coventriae, before 1475.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English with the senses it already had in Anglo-Norman, the skill and the equipment.^[5][6] In the 16th century it also stood for a body of archers: the OED's revised record starts in about 1560 with the ballad of the Hunting of the Cheviot, while its first edition gave about 1465.^[6][11] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the use of the bow" and "the act of shooting with the bow", quoting Camden's claim that among English weapons archery "challengeth the preeminence, as peculiar to our nation", and Shakespeare's figurative "Cupid's archery" in A Midsummer Night's Dream.^[12] The OED notes that the practice, once mainly for hunting and war, later became chiefly a sport or pastime.^[6] A legal sense, a kind of feudal service, is recorded only in Blount's law dictionary of 1691.^[6][11] The collective sense of equipment is now rare, and the sense "a company of archers" archaic.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – the practice or skill of an archer.^[2][4] The OED's first quotation for this sense is from before 1475.^[6]
• 1440 – an archer's weapons, bows and arrows, in the Promptorium Parvulorum.^[6]
• c. 1560 – a company of archers.^[6]
• 1691 – a feudal service (obsolete).^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The art, practice, sport or skill of shooting with a bow and arrows: She took up archery at the local club.^{[13][10][14][6]}
2. An archer's equipment, such as bows and arrows.^{[10][14][6][8]}
3. A body of archers.^{[13][10][14][6]}

Related words

• archer
• arc

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin