continence

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English continence,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French continence and directly borrowed from Latin continentia (“a holding back, repression”),^{[4][2][5][6][7]} from continēns (“holding back”), present participle of contineō (“to hold back; to hold together, contain”),^[4][5][8] from com- (“with, together”) and teneō (“to hold”), from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).^[4] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from 1212, meaning restraint.^[9] The verb is also the source of contain.^[5][6][8] The word is a doublet of countenance, which comes from Old French contenance.^[5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Self-restraint with regard to impulse, appetite or desire: about 1340, in R. Rolle's prose treatises.^[5] The MED's first quotations for moderation and restraint are from Trevisa, before 1387, who says Pythagoras usede so grete contynence and abstinence that he ate neither fish nor meat.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1350–1400.^[10]

Semantic evolution

From general self-restraint the word narrowed within a few decades to sexual self-restraint, recorded from about 1380 in Wyclif, as either due moderation or, more often, complete abstinence.^[5][4][7] Chaucer uses the word three times and Gower once.^[11] The medical sense, normal voluntary control over the discharge of urine and faeces, arrived only in the 20th century, first recorded in 1915 in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology,^[5][4] and it is the opposite of incontinence, whose medical sense is older.^[5][7] A separate early branch of meaning continued the Latin sense of "holding in": Trevisa uses the word for contents or capacity before 1398,^[5] a sense that late Latin had as "tenor or contents of a work",^[5] and Ayliffe uses it for continuity in 1726.^[5][7] The variant continency is recorded from the early 16th century and is now rare.^[7][4]

Timeline

• c. 1340 – self-restraint with regard to impulse or desire.^[5]
• c. 1380 – sexual self-restraint.^[5]
• before 1398 – tenor, contents, capacity (obsolete).^[5]
• early 16th century – continency, the same as continence.^[7]
• 1726 – continuity (obsolete).^[5]
• 1915 – voluntary control over excretory functions.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Self-restraint in yielding to impulse, appetite or desire: The critic praised the novelist's continence in leaving so much unsaid.^[3][5][7]
2. Self-restraint in sexual matters, especially complete abstinence; chastity.^[3][5][7]
3. (medicine) The ability to control voluntarily the discharge of urine and faeces.^[3][5][7]
4. (obsolete, 1726) Continuity.^[5][7]

Word family

• continency

Related words

• continent
• contain
• countenance
• incontinence

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme