Etymologically
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arson

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈɑːsən/[1]
  • US: /ˈɑɹsən/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Anglo-Norman arson, a term of the Anglo-Norman legal language,[2][3][4][5] also arsoun, arsun,[2][6][7] compare Old French arsion,[2][8] from Medieval Latin ārsiō (“a burning”),[2][3][9][10] a noun of action formed from ārsus, the past participle of ārdeō (“to burn”),[8][9][11][5] with the suffix -iō.[2][12] Etymonline traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *as- (“to burn, glow”).[8][9] The Latin verb is also the source of ardent and ardour.[5][11] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from the early 12th century, at first for the burning of a person alive; from the second half of the 12th century it also denoted the crime of setting fire to property.[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The crime of intentionally setting fire to property: before 1676, in Sir Matthew Hale's Pleas of the Crown (published 1678).[2][13] Ayto names Hale as the first to use the word in an English text and dates it 1680,[5] while Barnhart has "before 1680" and Etymonline the 1670s.[6][8]

Semantic evolution

The word had long been in use in the Law French of England: Ayto notes it in the Statute of Westminster of 1275, before it passed into English legal writing in the 17th century.[5] Old English had bærnet (“burning”) for the crime, and Coke in 1640 still wrote of an indictment of burning.[8] At common law the crime was the malicious burning of another person's dwelling house or its outbuildings,[14][15] and Webster (1828) already noted that American statutes had widened it, so that in Connecticut burning a ship could count as arson when it put lives at risk.[15] Modern definitions include setting fire to one's own property with criminal or fraudulent intent, for example to claim insurance.[16][17][2] The agent noun arsonist followed in 1864.[6][3] In Black British slang of the late 20th century arson was also used as a verb, to set alight.[18]

Timeline

  • early 12th century – Anglo-Norman arsun, the burning of a person alive.[2][7]
  • 1275 – Anglo-Norman arson in the Statute of Westminster.[5]
  • before 1676 – the crime of setting fire to property, in Hale.[2][13]
  • 1864 – arsonist.[6][3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The crime of setting fire to a building or other property on purpose or recklessly, whether another person's or one's own, especially with criminal or fraudulent intent: The warehouse fire was investigated as arson.[16][17][2]
  2. An instance of this crime: a string of arsons in the old town.[2][3]

Word family

  • arsonist
  • arsonous

Usage notes

In common law the crime was narrowly the burning of another person's house or of buildings belonging to it;[14] statutes later extended it to other buildings, vessels and one's own property.[15][16] A separate and long obsolete noun arson, a saddle-bow or a saddle, was borrowed from arsun, from Medieval Latin arciō, from arcus (“bow”), and recorded from about 1300 to 1836.[2][13]

References

  1. ^ a b 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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  13. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  14. ^ a b Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West
  15. ^ a b c Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse
  16. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com