Etymologically
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charge

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /tʃɑːdʒ/, US /tʃɑːrdʒ/[1]

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English chargen (“to load”),[2][3] borrowed from Old French chargier (“to load, burden, weigh down”),[4][3] from Late Latin carricāre (“to load a wagon or cart”),[4][3][2] from Latin carrus (“two-wheeled wagon”),[4][5] a Gaulish type of wagon, of Celtic origin.[2] The noun is from Old French charge “a load, burden”, from chargier.[3][4] It is a doublet of carry[3] and of cargo,[4] and related to car.[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun, “a load, weight”: probably before 1200, in an earlier version of the Ancrene Riwle,[3] or about 1200.[4] The verb, “to load, fill”: before 1250,[3] or the early 13th century.[4]

Semantic evolution

The senses “to entrust”, “to command” and “to accuse” all arose in Middle English and were already in Old French.[4][3] The noun meant a responsibility or burden from the mid-14th century, as in take charge (late 14th century) and in charge (1510s);[4] this led to the burden of expense in the mid-15th century and to a price asked for goods or services in the 1510s.[4][3] The legal sense “accusation” is from the late 15th century, earlier “injunction, order”,[4][6] and a judge's address to a jury from the 1680s.[4] To charge, “rush to attack”, is from the 1560s (1583), perhaps through the sense “to load a weapon”, from 1541.[3][4] The quantity of powder for one shot is from 1653.[7] The electrical sense, of the noun, is from 1767,[7] and of the verb, “to fill with electricity”, from 1748.[4] “To ask as a price” is from 1787, and “to record as a debt” by 1889.[4] In slang a charge was a dose of a drug from 1929 and a thrill or kick in American English from 1951.[7]

Timeline

  • before 1200 – noun, a load.[3]
  • before 1250 – verb, to load.[3]
  • mid-14th century – responsibility; to impose expense.[4]
  • late 15th century – an accusation.[4]
  • 1541 – to load a weapon.[3]
  • 1583 – to rush to attack.[3]
  • 1680s – a judge's charge to a jury.[4]
  • 1748 – to fill with electricity.[4]
  • 1787 – to ask as a price.[4]
  • 1951 – a thrill (US slang).[7]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To ask an amount as a price or fee.
  2. To record a purchase as a debt, as on a credit card.
  3. To formally accuse someone of a crime.
  4. To rush forward in an attack.
  5. To give someone a duty or responsibility.
  6. To put electricity into a battery or device.
  7. To load or fill.

Noun

  1. The price asked for something; a cost.
  2. A formal accusation of a crime.
  3. Care, custody or responsibility: in charge of; a person in someone's care.
  4. A rushing attack.
  5. An amount of explosive fired at one time.
  6. (physics) A quantity of electricity held by a body or particle.
  7. Instructions given by a judge to a jury.

Word family

  • chargeless
  • charge-off
  • chargeback
  • precharge
  • chargeful
  • countercharge
  • hypercharge
  • mischarge

Usage notes

Chargé, from 1767, is short for chargé d'affaires, a diplomat in charge of an embassy in the ambassador's absence.[7][8][5] In Scots and Northumbrian dialect charges (chairge) still meant expense, cost.[9]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ 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)