Etymologically
Log in

conserve

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 21:00. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /ˈkɒnsɜː(ɹ)v/, /kənˈsɜː(ɹ)v/[1]

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English conserven,[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French conserver (“to protect, preserve”),[5][6][7][8][9] and partly directly borrowed from Latin cōnservō (“to keep safe, preserve, keep intact”).[6][10] The Latin verb is formed from com-, here an intensive prefix, and servō (“to keep, watch over, preserve”),[5][4][7][8] from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to protect”).[5][4] Barnhart and Klein compare Avestan haurvaiti (“he keeps watch, guards”).[7][9] Ayto holds that this verb is not related to servus (“slave”), the source of serve and servant,[11] but Dictionary.com calls them akin.[10] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1284 with the sense "to preserve".[12] The noun is partly borrowed from Middle French conserve (“a preparation preserved in sugar”), from conserver, and partly a use of the English verb.[6][7][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To keep safe, preserve from loss or harm: about 1380, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, according to Barnhart;[7] the OED's first record is from before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.[6] Chaucer uses the verb ten times.[14] The noun is recorded from before 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis, for something that preserves and for a sweet or medicinal preparation of plants in sugar.[6][7]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb meant both keeping a thing alive or intact and keeping a condition or institution unchanged (Chaucer, about 1390).[6] Until the mid-17th century it could also mean to keep a promise or observe a custom, following the French sense.[6] The kitchen sense, to preserve fruit in sugar, dates from 1538 and is now mainly American.[6] From 1593 it was used of husbanding a resource and avoiding waste, a sense later influenced by conservation, which also shaped the 20th-century uses: protecting the natural environment (1908) and preserving or restoring old artefacts (1964).[6] Physics gave it the sense of keeping the total of a quantity such as energy unchanged (1874).[6][3] The noun's medicinal and confectionary sense of plants preserved in sugar (before 1393) narrowed to jam or preserves;[6][7] Johnson (1755) defined it as a sweetmeat of fruit juices boiled with sugar.[15] Its other old senses, a preservative, a store or hoard, and a conservatory for plants, have died out.[6][13]

Timeline

  • c. 1380 – verb, to keep safe, preserve, in Chaucer.[7]
  • before 1393 – noun, a preservative; a confection or medicine of plants preserved in sugar.[6][7]
  • before 1398 – to maintain a person or thing in existence.[6]
  • before 1425 – conserves, confections, preserves.[6][7]
  • c. 1425 – to keep a promise or observe a rite (obsolete by 1652).[6]
  • 1538 – to preserve fruit in sugar.[6]
  • 1586 – noun, a store or hoard (obsolete by 1651).[6]
  • 1593 – to husband a resource, avoid wasting it.[6]
  • 1874 – physics, to keep a quantity such as energy constant.[6]
  • 1908 – to protect the natural environment.[6]
  • 1964 – to preserve or restore historical artefacts.[6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To keep something from harm, decay or loss; to preserve: volunteers working to conserve the old woodland.[16][3][6]
  2. To use a resource carefully so as not to waste it: Turn off the lights to conserve power.[3][6]
  3. To preserve fruit with sugar.[16][3][6]
  4. (physics) To keep a quantity, such as energy or momentum, constant during a process.[3][6]

Noun

  1. A sweet preparation of fruit cooked in sugar, like jam but often with whole pieces of fruit.[16][3][6]
  2. (archaic) Something that preserves; a preservative (1393–1878).[3][6]

Word family

Usage notes

The verb is stressed on the second syllable; the noun is usually stressed on the first, though British speakers also stress it on the second.[16][3]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins