decoction

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English decoccioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French decoction, also decocciun (13th century),^[5][3][6] and partly directly from Latin dēcoctiō (“a boiling down”).^[3][6][7] The Latin noun is formed on dēcoctus, the past participle of dēcoquō (“to boil down”),^[3][8][4] from dē- (“down”) and coquō (“to cook”),^[3][6][9] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *pekw- (“to cook, ripen”).^[3] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from about 1240, meaning the completion of cooking, a liquid made by boiling, and digestion.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A liquor in which a substance, usually animal or vegetable, has been boiled, so that it holds what was extracted: 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew de Glanville.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

The process followed the product: boiling in water to extract the soluble parts is recorded from about 1430, in Lydgate.^[5][3] In Middle English the word covered more kinds of heating: the thickening of a liquid by boiling, the changing of a humour or an alchemical substance by heat, and the ripening of fruit and grain by the sun.^[2] The old notion that metals and ores matured by heat gave a sense recorded from 1430 to 1671,^[5][7] and the word also meant the digestion of food, from 1541 to 1658.^[5][7] Boiling down, also in a figurative sense, is recorded by the OED only in 1650–55,^[5] while the Shorter Oxford dates it from the late 16th to the mid 17th century.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the act of boiling any thing, to extract its virtues".^[11] Today the word is mainly used in pharmacy, of the extraction of a drug by boiling and of the liquid that results.^[9][4]

Timeline

• 1398 – a liquor in which a substance has been boiled.^[5][3]
• c. 1430 – the action of boiling a substance to extract its soluble parts.^[5][3]
• 1430 – maturing or perfecting by heat, especially of metals and ores (obsolete by 1671).^[5][7]
• 1541 – digestion (obsolete by 1658).^[5][7]
• 1650 – reduction by boiling down, also figurative (obsolete).^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The extraction of the soluble substances of a drug or plant by boiling it, usually in water.^[9][4][7]
2. The liquid or extract made in this way, especially a medicinal one: a decoction of willow bark.^[9][4][7]
3. (obsolete, 1430–1671) The maturing of a metal or ore by heat.^[5][7]
4. (obsolete, 1541–1658) Digestion of food.^[5][7]
5. (obsolete) Reduction by boiling down, also figuratively.^[5][7]

Word family

• decoctive

Related words

• decoct
• concoct
• cook

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c 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 k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.