crucify

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English crucifien, also crucefien,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French crucifier, also crucefiier.^[5][6][2] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1121–35.^[7] The Old French form goes back to Vulgar Latin *crucificō, a popular form that replaced Late Latin crucifīgō (“to fasten to a cross”),^[5][8][6][9] which fused a phrase made of the dative of Latin crux (“cross”) and of fīgō (“to fasten, fix”),^[5][6][10] the latter from Proto-Indo-European *dheigw- (“to stick, fix”).^[6] Klein instead takes the French verb directly from the Latin one, its form influenced by the many verbs in -fier, the suffix that answers to -ficāre.^[10] The Shorter Oxford compares fix,^[11] and the word shares its first part with crucifix.^[9][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To mortify, with reference to the Crucifixion of Christ: about 1320, in a translation of Bonaventura's Meditations, the OED's earliest record of any sense.^[5] Etymonline likewise has this scriptural sense from the early 14th century.^[6] For the literal sense, putting to death on a cross, Barnhart cites the Cursor Mundi from before 1325,^[8] the Middle English Dictionary cites the Ayenbite of 1340,^[2] Etymonline says the mid-14th century,^[6] and the OED's first quotation is the Wycliffite Bible of 1382.^[5] Collins and Hoad date the word to the 13th century.^[12][9]

Semantic evolution

The literal sense names an ancient form of capital punishment that the Romans and Greeks thought especially shameful and generally kept for slaves and highway robbers.^[6][11] From that, religious writers made a figurative use: to crucify the flesh or the passions was to kill their power, as in Galatians 5:24, "they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh".^[3][5] Chaucer has the verb twice.^[13] The secular figure of torment followed in 1621, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.^[5][8][6] From 1702 it was also used of severe bodily pain.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave only the literal definition, with a verse from Hebrews.^[14] The verb was stretched in 1674, in Butler's Hudibras, to nailing someone to the pillory,^[5] and Chambers records fastening a soldier to a wheel as a field punishment, a use the Historical Thesaurus dates from 1940.^[15][16] In modern use it can mean to attack or pillory a person in public, especially for a cause,^[3][15] and in slang to defeat or ridicule someone utterly.^[12] The OED also has two rare obsolete uses: to put to the crucible (1471) and to place crosswise (1633).^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1320 – to mortify the flesh or the passions, in religious use.^[5]
• 1340 – to put to death on a cross.^[2] The OED's first quotation for this sense is from 1382.^[5]
• 1621 – to torment, in Burton.^[5][8]
• 1674 – to nail to the pillory (now obsolete).^[5]
• 1702 – to afflict with severe pain.^[5]
• 1940 – to punish a soldier by binding him to a wheel or the like.^[16][15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put to death by nailing or tying the hands and feet to a cross.^[3][12][5]
2. To destroy the power of a passion or desire; to mortify or subdue it: The hermit fasted to crucify his appetites.^[3][12][11]
3. To treat very cruelly; to torment: Guilt crucified him for years.^[12][3][11]
4. To attack or persecute someone in public, especially over a cause or principle; to pillory: The papers crucified the mayor over the bridge contract.^[3][15]
5. (slang) To defeat or ridicule someone completely: The reviewers crucified her first novel.^[12]

Word family

• crucifier

Related words

• cross
• crucifix
• crucifixion
• crux
• fix
• crusade

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ 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 d The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
16. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)