bearing

Etymology

It is formed from English bear + -ing,^[2][3][4] in Middle English bēring, from bēren.^[5][6] Bear is from Old English beran,^[7] from Proto-Germanic *beraną (“to bear, carry, give birth”),^[8][9] from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to carry”).^[9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fact of being born, birth: about 1275, in the Kentish Sermons.^[2] The sense "way of carrying oneself" is recorded before 1325 in Genesis and Exodus, a text dated about 1250,^[2] and Etymonline dates it to the mid-13th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Each main sense of the noun follows one of the senses of the verb.^[2][4] Carrying oneself gave the sense of deportment and behaviour;^[2] Chaucer uses it for manners and demeanour.^[10] Supporting a weight, recorded before 1387, gave a physical support (before 1425),^[2] and later, in machines, the part that bears the friction of a moving part: the OED has this from 1734,^[2] Etymonline from 1791.^[3] Producing fruit or young gave the sense of yield.^[2][11]

A position or direction relative to a fixed point is recorded from 1616 in the OED,^[2] from the 1630s in Etymonline.^[3] To take one's bearings appears in 1711,^[3] and one's bearings for one's position, then one's grasp of a situation, in 1852.^[2] From 1741 a bearing was also a connection with or relevance to something, usually with on or upon.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave the place of a thing relative to something else, then gesture and behaviour, and a carpenter's sense, the span of a piece of timber.^[12] In Somerset the machine sense was used for a shaft's block or support, and in Yorkshire bearing was the course of a vein of lead; a bearing-door was the main door in a pit in Northumberland and Durham, and a bearing-feast a supper for workmen when a building's roof was raised, in Cumberland.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1275 – birth (obsolete by 1400).^[2]
• before 1325 – the way a person moves, stands or behaves.^[2]
• before 1387 – the supporting of a physical weight.^[2]
• before 1398 – the producing of fruit or flowers.^[2]
• before 1425 – a structure that holds something up.^[2]
• 1496 – endurance of an ordeal.^[2]
• 1562 – a heraldic charge or device.^[2]
• 1616 – the direction or position of something relative to a fixed point.^[2] Etymonline dates this to the 1630s.^[3]
• 1670 – the length of a beam between two supports (obsolete by 1726).^[2]
• 1711 – to take one's bearings.^[3]
• 1734 – a machine part that supports a moving part and limits friction.^[2] Etymonline dates this to 1791.^[3]
• 1741 – a connection or relevance to something.^[2]
• 1852 – one's bearings, one's position relative to one's surroundings.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The way in which a person carries or conducts themselves; deportment: the dancer's graceful bearing.^{[14][11][6][2]}
2. A device in a machine that supports a moving part and reduces friction: The wheel bearings need replacing.^[14][11][2]
3. Direction, especially the angle measured from one position to another using geographical or compass reference lines: The navigator took a bearing on the lighthouse.^[14][11][2]
4. bearings: awareness of one's position or situation in relation to one's surroundings: She soon lost her bearings in the old town.^[14][4][2]
5. Relevance or connection, usually with on: The remark has no bearing on the result.^[14][11][2]
6. Something that supports a weight; the part of an arch or beam that rests on a support.^[14][11][2]
7. The act, ability or period of producing fruit or young; the amount produced, the yield.^[14][11][2]
8. A heraldic charge or device, as in the phrase armorial bearings.^[14][2][4]
9. Endurance: past bearing.^[15][2][16]
10. (obsolete, 1670–1726) The length of a beam between two supports.^[2][12]

Adjective

1. Of a wall or other structural part, designed to support weight: a bearing wall.^[14][6]

Word family

• everbearing
• nonbearing
• unbearing
• childbearing
• bearing rein
• ball bearing
• roller bearing
• armorial bearings

Related words

• bear
• birth
• burden

Usage notes

A bearing on the stock market, the practice of making a stock's price fall (from 1849), comes from the stock-exchange verb bear, not from the verb that means to carry.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b 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 v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ 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)
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ 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.
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press