compensate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin compēnsātus, the past participle of compēnsō (“to weigh one thing against another, counterbalance”),^[2][3][4][5] made of com- (“with, together”) and pēnsō (“to weigh out”), the frequentative of pendō (“to hang, weigh, pay”);^[3][4][5] Merriam-Webster derives the Latin verb instead from compendō (“to weigh together”).^[6] Etymonline traces pendō to Proto-Indo-European *(s)pen- (“to draw, stretch, spin”).^[3] Barnhart suggests the influence of French compenser, and thinks the verb is partly a back-formation from the older compensation, recorded before 1387.^[4] English earlier had a verb compense, from the late 14th century.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To counterbalance something with an equivalent: 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.^[2][4][6] Etymonline dates the sense "be equivalent" to the 1640s and "counterbalance, make up for" to the 1650s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th century the verb meant to be an equivalent for something (1648), to make up for or make amends for it (1656), and to make amends in general (1660).^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to recompense; to be equivalent to; to counterbalance", quoting Bacon: "The length of the night, and the dews thereof, do compensate the heat of the day."^[7] The sense "to pay or recompense a person" is recorded in the OED from 1804, in a digest of property law,^[2] and in Etymonline from 1814.^[3] Technical uses followed: in mechanics, to correct the variations of a pendulum (1819), and in electricity, to correct a circuit for an unwanted effect (1872).^[2] In 1914 Carl Jung, writing in the British Medical Journal, gave the psychological sense of making up for a defect or frustration by developing other traits.^[2]

Timeline

• 1646 – to counterbalance with an equivalent.^[2][4][6]
• 1648 – to be an equivalent, make up for.^[2]
• 1656 – to make amends for.^[2]
• 1804 – to pay or recompense a person.^[2]
• 1819 – (mechanics) to correct the variations of a pendulum.^[2]
• 1914 – (psychology) to offset a shortcoming.^[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To pay someone for loss, injury or work; to recompense: The airline compensated passengers for the delay.
2. To make up for something; to offset or counterbalance it, often with for: His enthusiasm compensated for his lack of skill.
3. (engineering) To counteract a variation or an unwanted effect in a device so that it works correctly.
4. (psychology) To make up for a real or imagined shortcoming by developing or exaggerating other qualities.

Word family

• compensative
• compensator
• compensatory
• compensatingly
• precompensate
• overcompensate
• recompensate
• undercompensate

Related words

• compensation
• compensable
• recompense
• pendant
• pensive
• ponder
• pension

Usage notes

The OED (1891) notes that stress on the first syllable, now usual in England, was then recent: pronouncing dictionaries until about 1850–70 gave only stress on the second, which was also that of the 18th-century poets, and Tennyson used both.^[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 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.