art

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ɑːt/, US /ɑːrt/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English art, borrowed from Old French art and directly borrowed from Latin ars (“skill, craft; a work of art”) (accusative artem),^[2][3] from Proto-Indo-European *ar(ə)-ti-, a suffixed form of *ar- (“to fit together”).^[2][4][3] The Latin word is related to artus (“joint”) and arma (“tools, weapons”).^[3][5][2] It is related to arm, article, artifice, artisan, artist and inert.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cunning, trickery: about 1250, in King Horn,^[3] and skill gained by learning or practice in the early 13th century according to Etymonline.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English art usually meant skill in scholarship and learning, especially in the seven liberal arts, the sense kept in Bachelor of Arts.^[2][3] “Human workmanship”, as opposed to nature, is from the late 14th century,^[2] and “a system of rules for doing something” from the late 15th.^[2] The sense “cunning” returned in the late 16th century, the sense of artful (1613) and artless.^[2][3] Barnhart finds art used of music, dancing, drama and literature only after 1600,^[3] Etymonline dates skill in the creative arts to the 1610s,^[2] and the Word Origins dictionary dates the modern sense to the mid-16th century.^[6] The narrow sense “painting and sculpture” appears in the late 17th or early 18th century.^[3] Art for art's sake translated a French phrase in the early 19th century and became the slogan of the Aesthetic Movement in the 1880s.^[6] Art as an adjective, as in art song, is from 1890, and art film from 1960.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – cunning (King Horn).^[3]
• c. 1300 – learning; the liberal arts.^[2]
• late 14th century – human workmanship.^[2]
• 1610s – the creative arts.^[2]
• 1613 – artful.^[3]
• late 17th century – painting and sculpture.^[3]
• 1880s – art for art's sake.^[6]
• 1890 – adjective, as in art song.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Human effort to imitate, add to or change the work of nature.
2. The creation of works that appeal to the sense of beauty, especially painting and sculpture, or the works themselves.
3. (plural) The fine arts, such as music, dance and literature.
4. (plural) The humanities, as distinct from the sciences.
5. A skill gained by study and practice: the art of conversation.
6. Cunning, artfulness.

Related words

• artist
• artisan
• artifice
• artificial
• article
• arm
• inert

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary groups art with craft, expertise, knack, know-how and technique, all meaning skill gained by study or practice.^[7] Art is also the archaic second person singular of be (thou art), from Old English eart, which went out of use in the 19th century.^[2][7]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin