augmentation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English augmentacioun,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman augmentacioun and Middle French augmentation,^[4][3][5] and partly directly borrowed from Late Latin augmentātiō (“increase”),^[4][6][7][8] from augmentō (“to increase”),^[5][4] from augmentum (“an increase, growth”), from augeō (“to increase, enlarge”), from Proto-Indo-European *aug- (“to increase”).^[5] Dictionary.com notes that it replaced the late Middle English aumentacion, from Middle French.^[9] The Anglo-Norman word, recorded from the second quarter of the 13th century, meant an increase and a benefit or improvement.^[10] The OED compares Catalan augmentació, Spanish aumentación and Italian aumentazione.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The process of becoming greater in number, size or degree; growth: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[4] Merriam-Webster dates the word to the 14th century,^[3] and Etymonline to the mid-15th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Senses of increasing and of being increased appeared side by side in the 15th century, together with "something added" (about 1452, in Capgrave).^[4][2] The MED also records a use for padding verses with added lines or syllables.^[2] In the 15th century the word could also mean raising someone in honour, after a sense already found in Old French, but this was obsolete by 1611.^[4] Medicine used it from the early 15th century to 1900 for the stage of a fever between its onset and its height.^[4] The meaning "amount by which something is increased" is from the 1520s,^[5] and the Court of Augmentations, set up under Henry VIII in 1535–6, took its name from the word.^[4] Music adopted it for lengthening the note values of a theme, about 1570 in the OED and in the 1590s in Etymonline;^[4][5] heraldry for a charge added to a coat of arms as a mark of honour (1610);^[4] and in the 20th century plastic surgery for enlarging a part of the body, as in breast augmentation (1953).^[4]

Timeline

• before 1398 – growth, increase.^[4]
• before 1422 – the action of making something greater; enlargement.^[4]
• before 1425 – in medicine, the stage of a fever between onset and height (obsolete by 1900).^[4]
• c. 1439 – exaltation, honouring (obsolete by 1611).^[4]
• c. 1452 – something added; an addition.^[4][2]
• 1535 – the Court of Augmentations.^[4]
• c. 1570 – in music, lengthening the note values of a theme.^[4] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1590s.^[5]
• 1610 – in heraldry, an honourable addition to a coat of arms.^[4]
• 1953 – enlargement of a part of the body by plastic surgery.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of making something larger or greater: the augmentation of the city's water supply.^[3][11][12]
2. The state of being made larger; growth or increase.^[3][11][12]
3. Something that adds to or increases something; an addition.^[3][11][4]
4. In music, the restatement of a theme in notes of longer, usually doubled, value, as in a fugue.^[12][11][4]
5. Enlargement of a part of the body by plastic surgery.^[4]
6. In heraldry, a charge added to a coat of arms as a mark of honour.^[4]

Related words

• augmentative
• augmented
• auxiliary
• diminution
• augment
• auction
• author
• august

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins