cornerstone

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English cornerston,^[2] also corner-stōn, kerner-ston and quarner-ston,^[3] formed from Middle English corner + ston.^[2][4][5][6] The first part, corner, came through Anglo-Norman cornere from cornū (“horn”), and the second, stone, is stān, from Proto-Germanic *stainaz.^[5] The figurative use follows the Bible, where it renders Ecclesiastical Latin lapis angularis (“corner stone”), used of Christ in the Vulgate.^[5][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stone at the corner of a building, joining two walls: the MED's first record is the South English Legendary (composed about 1280, manuscript before 1325), already in a figurative use, where Christ is the cornerstone joining the two walls of the Old and New Testaments.^[3] Etymonline dates the word to the late 13th century,^[5] and the OED's first quotation, for the literal sense, is from the early Wycliffite Bible (before 1382).^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

The literal and the figurative senses run side by side from the start, because the word entered English largely through translations of the Bible, which called Christ the "chief cornerstone"; the Wycliffite versions of Isaiah and Ephesians have it in the 1380s.^[3][4][5] Since the stone was often the starting point of a building, the word came to mean the thing on which anything is founded or that holds it together.^[5][7] The later specific sense, an inscribed stone laid at a ceremony marking the beginning of a building, is recorded by the modern dictionaries.^[2][8][9] In American political language the image was applied to the federal union, and in 1845 James Hammond called slavery "the corner-stone of our republican edifice";^[5] Alexander Stephens's "Cornerstone speech" on the Confederate constitution was given at Savannah on 21 March 1861.^[5] An unrelated technical use, the coving of a fireplace, is recorded only in 1703.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1280 – a cornerstone, used figuratively of Christ, in the South English Legendary.^[3]
• before 1382 – one of the stones forming the outer angle of a wall, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[4][7]
• c. 1384 – figurative, that on which something rests or is founded.^[4][7]
• 1703 – the coving of a fireplace (obsolete).^[4]
• 1845 – the corner-stone of our republican edifice, in James Hammond's letter.^[5]
• 1861 – Alexander Stephens's Cornerstone speech.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A stone at the corner of a building, where two walls meet and are joined; a quoin.^[8][9][2]
2. Such a stone, often bearing an inscription and a date, laid at a ceremony that marks the start of building work: The mayor laid the cornerstone of the new library.^[8][9][2]
3. Something on which everything else rests; an essential foundation or basis: Trust is the cornerstone of their partnership.^[8][9][2]

Related words

• corner
• stone
• keystone
• capstone
• quoin

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e 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)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins