condominium

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin condominium (“joint sovereignty”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from con- (“together, with”) and dominium (“lordship, right of ownership”),^{[3][2][6][7][8]} on the pattern of words such as convīvium and contubernium.^[3] Etymonline and Weekley take the Latin word as apparently coined in Germany about 1700.^[2][9] The Latin noun is from dominus (“lord, master, owner”), from domus (“house”), from Proto-Indo-European *dem- (“house, household”).^[2] The word is related to dominion and domain.^[6][7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Joint rule or sovereignty: about 1714, in Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time, of the joint rule of the King of Denmark and the Duke of Holstein in that duchy.^{[3][11][4][6]} Etymonline dates the word to 1714,^[2] Dictionary.com to 1705–15,^[12] and Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories finds it used of joint sovereignty as early as 1705.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Until 1962 the word belonged to politics and international law,^[6][2] where it named joint rule over a territory by two or more states, such as the Anglo-Egyptian condominium in the Sudan,^[4][11] and among stamp collectors the Anglo-French condominium of the New Hebrides.^[6] In Roman law it also meant common ownership of one property by several persons in undivided shares.^[4] In 1962 American English took it up for the individual ownership of an apartment in a building whose common parts are jointly owned, as a special use of the legal term;^[6][2][11] by 1963 it meant the building and an apartment in it,^[6][3] and the short form condo is recorded from 1964.^[6] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories notes that condominiums became something of a symbol of middle-class affluence.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1714 – joint rule or sovereignty.^[3][4][6] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories finds it used this way as early as 1705.^[11]
• 1962 – in American English, individual ownership of an apartment in a jointly owned building.^[6][2][11]
• 1963 – a building of such apartments; one of the apartments.^[6] The OED's first quotation is from 1962.^[3]
• 1964 – the short form condo.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly US and Canada) A building or complex in which each apartment or unit is owned individually and the common parts are owned jointly: They sold the house and moved into a condominium near the beach.^[10][13][4]
2. A unit in such a building.^[10][13][3]
3. Joint rule or sovereignty, especially over a territory by two or more states.^[10][4][13]
4. A territory ruled jointly by two or more foreign powers.^[13]
5. (Roman law) Common ownership of one property by several persons in undivided shares.^[4]

Word family

• condominial

Related words

• condo
• dominion
• domain

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins