corrosion

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English corrosioun, also corrisoun,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French corrosion and directly borrowed from Latin corrōsiō (“a gnawing away”),^[4][3][5][6] a noun of action from corrōsus, the past participle of corrōdō (“to gnaw to pieces, wear away”).^[3][7][8] The verb is formed from com-, here perhaps an intensive prefix, and rōdō (“to gnaw”),^[3][4] the source of rodent.^[3] The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster give the immediate Latin source as Medieval or Late Latin,^[8][9] and Dictionary.com has the word reach Middle English through Middle French.^[10] In Anglo-Norman corrosion is recorded from the second quarter of the 13th century in the sense "decay, rotting".^[11] It is the noun of corrode.^[4][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Destruction of the tissues of the body by disease or by a corrosive drug, in the surgical treatise of Lanfranc, about 1400.^[4][2] The Middle English Dictionary also records the property of destroying tissue, in Lanfranc and in the translation of Guy de Chauliac.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a medical term and passed to chemistry: the eating away of metal by acids, rust and the like is recorded from 1617, in Woodall's Surgions Mate.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the power of eating or wearing away by degrees" and discussed it as a kind of dissolution of bodies by acids.^[13] A figurative use, the slow wearing down of something non-material, appears before 1610,^[4] and later senses applied it to the wasting action of water (1781, now obsolete), to the chemical breakdown of rock in geology (1802) and, rarely, to the product of the process, such as rust (1779).^[4] In Gloucestershire dialect it meant the deposit left inside a boiler.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – destruction of body tissue, in Lanfranc's Cirurgie.^[4][2]
• a1610 – figurative use.^[4]
• 1617 – destruction of metal by chemical action.^[4]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as the power of eating away by degrees.^[13]
• 1779 – a product of corrosion, such as rust.^[4]
• 1781 – the wearing action of water (now obsolete).^[4]
• 1802 – in geology, the chemical breakdown of rock and soil.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The gradual eating away of a solid, especially a metal, by chemical action, as in the rusting of iron: Salt spray caused heavy corrosion on the hull.^[15][9][4]
2. A slow weakening or destruction of something, such as trust or morale.^[15][9]
3. The damaged state, or the product, that this process leaves, such as rust.^[15][4]
4. In geology, the breakdown of rock or soil by the chemical action of water and natural acids.^[4]
5. Destruction of body tissue by disease or by a corrosive substance.^[4][2]

Word family

• corrosional
• biocorrosion

Related words

• corrode
• corrosive
• rodent
• erosion

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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)
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins