Etymologically
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beacon

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈbiːkən/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English beken,[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English bēacen (“sign, portent, standard”),[4][6][7][8] inherited from Proto-Germanic *baukną (“sign, signal”).[4][6][9] Its cognates are Old Frisian bāken, Old Saxon bōkan, Middle Dutch bōkin and Old High German bouhhan,[6][7][10][8] and Old Norse bákn, which Liberman thinks was borrowed from West Germanic.[11] The OED notes that the word is not known outside Germanic,[7] and Barnhart, Hoad and the Shorter Oxford call it of unknown origin.[6][8][10] Etymonline, following Watkins, and the American Heritage Dictionary derive it from the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to shine”),[4][2][9] and Merriam-Webster compares Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō, “to show”).[3] Liberman rejects such derivations: he takes Proto-Germanic *bauk- as a local Germanic word for swelling, formless objects, which took its suffix and its meaning "sign" from its synonym Proto-Germanic *taikną, the source of token.[11] The verb beckon is formed from the noun.[12][8][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A sign or portent: Old English, in the Lindisfarne Gospels;[7][10] and a military standard or banner, in Beowulf (about 725, according to Barnhart).[7][6] Liberman likewise gives "banner" and "portent" as the original meanings.[11]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the Old English word meant simply "sign", and did not develop its modern senses until the 14th century.[12] The sense "signal fire" is recorded from 1338, as beken,[6] and in Langland's Piers Plowman (1377), of a fire lit on a height as a warning of danger;[7] a chain of such beacons could carry news across the country.[7] From 1397 the word was used for a lighthouse or other mark guiding ships,[7][3] from 1597 for a hill on which beacons were lit, a sense still found in the names of hills,[7][14] and a watchtower from 1611.[7] The figurative sense, a person or thing that guides or warns, is recorded from about 1600, in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.[7][4] Johnson (1755) defined it as something raised on a height to be fired on the approach of an enemy.[15] In the 20th century the word was applied to lights guiding pilots to an aerodrome (1918) and to radio transmitters that let aircraft or ships fix their position (1919).[7] In British slang a red nose has been called a beacon since about 1890.[16]

Timeline

  • Old English – a sign, a portent; a standard.[7]
  • 1338 – beken, a signal fire.[6]
  • 1377 – a fire lit on a height as a warning.[7]
  • 1397 – a lighthouse or sea mark.[7]
  • 1597 – a hill on which beacons were lit.[7]
  • 1609 – figurative.[7]
  • 1644 – the verb, in Milton.[7][3]
  • 1918 – an aerodrome light.[7]
  • 1919 – a radio beacon.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A fire or light set on a high place as a signal or warning.
  2. A lighthouse, buoy or other signal marking a hazard or guiding ships.
  3. A radio transmitter or light that guides aircraft or ships, or marks a position.
  4. A hill on which beacon fires were once lit; also in place names.
  5. A person or thing that guides, inspires or warns: The library became a beacon of learning for the town.
  6. (British) A Belisha beacon.

Verb

  1. To shine like a beacon, or to light up as one does.
  2. To guide or inspire.
  3. To mark or provide with beacons.

Word family

  • beaconless
  • daybeacon
  • radio beacon

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 d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c Liberman, Anatoly (2008), An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
  12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com