barbarity

Etymology

It is from Latin barbarus (“strange, foreign”),^[2][3][4][5] with the English suffix -ity.^[2][3][4][6] The OED notes that the formation does not exist in Latin or French.^[2] Johnson derived it from barbarous.^[7] The Latin adjective is from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros, “foreign, non-Greek”), which the OED compares with balbus (“stammering”), as having probably referred first to speech.^[2][3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Want of civilization, rude and uncultured condition: 1566 according to Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[6] the 1560s in Etymonline,^[3] and 1570 in the OED, in Levens's Manipulus Vocabulorum.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word took the place of the older barbarie for lack of civilization, and in turn gave way in that sense to barbarism; the OED records it until 1819.^[2] The usual modern sense, savage cruelty, is recorded from the 1680s: 1685 in the OED.^[3][2] By 1720 the word could be used in the plural for acts of such cruelty, in Pope's translation of the Iliad.^[2] Johnson (1755) listed "savageness; incivility" first, then "cruelty; inhumanity", then "barbarism; impurity of speech".^[7] The sense relating to language is dated to the late 16th century in the Shorter Oxford,^[4] though the OED's first record is from 1706,^[2] and it is now archaic.^[4] A sense relating to style in art is recorded from 1644, in Evelyn, and Collins still gives a crude or unsophisticated quality or style.^[2][9]

Timeline

• 1566 – want of civilization, barbarism.^[6] The OED's first record is from 1570.^[2]
• 1644 – barbarism of style in art, in Evelyn.^[2]
• 1685 – savage cruelty, inhumanity.^[2][3]
• 1706 – barbarism of language.^[2]
• 1720 – an act of savage cruelty.^[2][4]
• 1860 – an instance of a lack of artistic culture.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Savage cruelty; inhumanity: The barbarity of the siege shocked the town's neighbours.^[6][2][9]
2. An act of savage cruelty.^[6][2][9]
3. A crude or unsophisticated quality, style or expression.^[9][2]
4. (archaic) A barbarism of language.^[4][2]
5. (obsolete, 1570–1819) Lack of civilization.^[2][4]

Related words

• barbarous
• barbarism
• barbaric
• barbarian

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins