Etymologically
Log in

attach

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 21:53. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /əˈtæt͡ʃ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English attachen,[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman attacher (“to fasten; to seize by law”),[4][5] a form of atachier,[6][7][8] with influence from attachiare (“to bind a person to appear in court; to seize goods”), which was common in British Latin sources from the 12th century.[4][9] The Old French verb was altered, by a change of prefix to a- (from ad (“to”)), from estachier (“to fasten, fix; to stake up”),[6][7][3] itself from estache (“a post, stake”), a word of Germanic origin,[2][9] perhaps Frankish *stakō (“a post, stake”), from Proto-Germanic *stakô, the source of stake.[6][10][11] Klein and Skeat instead connected it with the Germanic word behind tack, a small nail.[12][13] attack is the same word in its Italian form, attaccare.[12][14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

In law, to seize a person or goods by legal authority: the OED's first quotation is from the statutes, a1325;[4] Etymonline dates the English verb to the mid-14th century and the Anglo-Latin one to the mid-13th,[6] and Barnhart cites Robert Mannyng's Chronicle (before 1338).[16] Anglo-Norman already had both the sense of fastening and that of arresting from 1121–35.[5]

Semantic evolution

Ayto points out that when English first took the word it meant "seize" or "arrest", a metaphorical sense that seems to have arisen in Anglo-Norman,[10] although Etymonline thinks "fasten" was the original sense etymologically.[6] The general sense of fastening one thing to another entered English in the 15th century,[9][7][6] the OED's first example again being Mannyng's Chronicle.[4] The legal sense of arresting a person or seizing property is still the first sense in Merriam-Webster, which notes that it is now applied chiefly to taking a person by civil process.[3] In the 16th and 17th centuries the verb could also mean to accuse (1480–1655) and, of illness or passion, to seize or take hold of someone (1541–1784): Shakespeare's Gonzalo in The Tempest is "attach'd with weariness".[4][17] In Hertfordshire this sense survived around 1900 as "to be subject to", as in being "attached to rheumatics".[17] Johnson (1755) gave "to arrest" first, then senses of seizing, winning over and fastening.[18] The intransitive legal sense, to take effect or become relevant (often attach upon), dates from Bacon, a1626.[4]

Timeline

  • a1325 – to seize by legal authority.[4]
  • before 1338 – to fasten or join one thing to another (Mannyng).[4][16]
  • 1480–1655 – to accuse of an offence.[4]
  • 1541–1784 – of illness or passion, to seize a person.[4]
  • a1626 – intransitive, to take legal effect.[4]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To fasten, join or connect one thing to another: She attached a luggage tag to the handle.
  2. To join or associate oneself with a group or undertaking; to assign a person to a unit or organization, often temporarily.
  3. To ascribe or attribute importance, value or blame to something.
  4. To be connected with or belong to something, followed by to: No blame attaches to the driver.
  5. To send a file together with an email or a document with a letter.
  6. To bind by affection or loyalty; usually in the passive, attached to.
  7. (law) To seize property or arrest a person by legal authority, as by a writ.

Word family

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  9. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  17. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.