deflect

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dēflectō (“to bend aside or downward”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from dē- (“away, down”) and flectō (“to bend, turn”).^[2][4][7][8] Etymonline calls the Latin verb flectō of uncertain origin.^[4] It is related to flex and reflect.^[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To turn aside, used figuratively of a course of action: about 1555 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster,^[3][6] and before 1575 in N. Harpsfield's Treatise on Divorce in the OED.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense came first, and the literal ones followed in the early 17th century: to turn something into another use (1613), to turn something from a straight line (1615) and to bend it down (1630).^[2] The intransitive use, to turn aside or deviate, is recorded from 1612 in a figurative sense,^[2] while Etymonline dates it to the 1610s;^[4] the literal intransitive sense appears in 1646, in Sir T. Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.^[2] Johnson (1755) listed it as an intransitive verb meaning to deviate from a true course, quoting Browne on a compass needle that does not deflect near the Azores.^[10] In optics it was used from 1796 of bending a ray of light.^[2] The noun deflexion was first used in 1603, in Holland's translation of Plutarch's Moralia, for a change in a word's form or meaning, and then in 1605 for a turning from a usual course.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1555 – to turn aside (transitive).^[3][6]
• before 1575 – figurative, of a course of action.^[2]
• 1603 – the noun deflexion, later deflection.^[3]
• 1612 – intransitive, to turn aside (figurative).^[2]
• 1615 – to turn from a straight line, to change the direction of.^[2]
• 1630 – to bend down.^[2]
• 1646 – intransitive, to deviate from a course (literal).^[2]
• 1796 – in optics, to bend a ray of light.^[2]
• 1851 – the adjective deflect, bent aside, in E. B. Browning.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To turn something from a straight course or set direction: The goalkeeper deflected the shot over the bar.^[6][11][2]
2. To bend a ray of light or a beam of particles from a straight line.^[6][2]
3. To turn someone or something away from an intended or usual course, or to divert attention: She deflected the reporters' questions with a joke.^[6][11]
4. (intransitive) To turn aside; to deviate from a straight line or a course.^[6][11][2]

Word family

• deflectable
• deflective
• deflector

Related words

• deflection
• flex
• reflect
• inflect
• genuflect
• flexible

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins