confer

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cōnferō (“to bring together, collect, contribute, consult together, compare; to bestow”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from com- (“together”) and ferō (“to bear, bring”),^[2][3][7][8] from Proto-Indo-European *bher- (“to carry”).^[7][3] Etymonline and Barnhart allow that it may have come partly through French conférer (“to give; to converse; to compare”), recorded in French from the 14th century,^[7][8] but the OED and Skeat hold that the French verb was not taken into English, which they see in the stress on the second syllable, as in defer and infer, against the French-derived differ, offer and suffer.^[2][5] The Latin participial stem of the same verb gave collate.^[2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To contribute (to or unto something): 1528, in a document printed in Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials.^[2][8] The Middle English Dictionary has a single earlier instance, in a letter of 1449, where confered seems to mean "summoned",^[10][11] and the Shorter Oxford dates the senses "bring together" and "converse" to late Middle English.^[12][13]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century the verb kept several of the senses of the Latin: to bring together or collect (1552–1618), to contribute (1528–1703) and, most of all, to compare (from about 1531 to the mid 18th century).^[2][12] Etymonline calls "compare" the oldest English meaning, common from 1530 to about 1650,^[7] and Johnson (1755) still put it first, quoting Raleigh and Boyle.^[14] It survives only in the abbreviation cf., for the Latin imperative cōnfer, compare.^[8][7] From comparing opinions came the sense of consulting or taking counsel together, recorded from the 1540s, which led to conference.^[7][9] The sense "to give, grant, bestow", now the chief transitive one, is recorded from 1570 in an Act of Elizabeth I,^[2][8] at first with to or unto (1542–1768); since Shakespeare's Tempest it has taken on or upon, the construction that remains.^[2]

Timeline

• 1449 – a single instance, apparently “to summon”.^[10]
• 1528 – to contribute (now obsolete).^[2][8]
• c. 1531 – to compare, collate (obsolete by 1753).^[2][7]
• 1540s – to consult together, take counsel.^[7]
• 1552 – to bring together, collect (obsolete by 1618).^[2]
• 1570 – to give, grant or bestow, as a favour or an honour.^[2][8]
• before 1600 – with a thing as subject: to give a quality or right, in Hooker.^[2]
• before 1616 – bestow on or upon, in Shakespeare's Tempest.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To grant or bestow something, such as a title, degree, honour or right, on someone: The university conferred an honorary doctorate on the novelist.^[15][16][2]
2. Of a thing: to give a quality or advantage to: Long practice confers a certain ease.^[2][12]
3. To talk things over or consult together; to compare views: The two lawyers conferred before the hearing.^[15][16]
4. (obsolete, c. 1531–1753) To compare.^[2][15][14]
5. (obsolete, 1528–1703) To contribute.^[2][14][12]

Word family

• conferment
• conferrable
• conferral
• conferrer
• unconferred
• conferee
• reconfer

Related words

• conference
• collate
• collation
• refer
• defer
• infer
• transfer
• offer
• differ
• suffer
• bear
• fertile

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b 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)
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster