deign

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English deinen, also deignen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French deignier, earlier degnier,^[5][3][6] from Latin dignāre, a by-form of dignārī (“to deem worthy, think fit”),^[5][7][8] from dignus (“worthy”),^[5][6][9] from Proto-Indo-European *deḱ- (“to take, accept”).^[9][6][1] Etymonline and the MED also see the direct influence of the Latin verb.^[9][2] French has the later form French daigner, and the Latin verb is also the source of Italian degnare and Spanish deñar.^[5][9] From the same Latin adjective come dignity, dignify, disdain and dainty.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To think something suited to one's worth; in the first record, from 1297 in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, it is impersonal, to seem worthy to someone.^[5][2] Etymonline and Barnhart date the word to about 1300,^[9][4] and Dictionary.com to 1250–1300.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The personal use, to think fit or to condescend to do something, is recorded in the romance Guy of Warwick by about 1330,^[5] often in the negative in Middle English,^[2] and Chaucer uses the verb 12 times and Gower 4.^[13] In the late 16th century it gained direct objects: to accept graciously, from 1576,^[5][4] and to bestow or grant, from 1589, the sense that survives mainly with reply or answer in negative sentences.^[5][7] Etymonline and Barnhart see the sense of condescending develop out of graciously accepting.^[9][4] A short-lived use followed the Latin, to treat a person as worthy of something (1579–1648).^[5] Johnson (1755) gave the intransitive verb as "To vouchsafe; to think worthy" and the transitive as "To grant; to permit; to allow".^[14] The MED separately enters deinen "to scorn", a shortening of disdeinen,^[2] and the OED likewise treats some forms as short for disdain.^[5]

Timeline

• 1297 – impersonal, to seem worthy, obsolete by 1400.^[5]
• c. 1330 – to think fit, to condescend to do something.^[5]
• before 1525 – reflexive, to condescend (obsolete by 1563).^[5]
• 1576 – to accept graciously, obsolete by 1661.^[5][4]
• 1579 – to treat a person as worthy, obsolete by 1648.^[5]
• 1589 – to condescend to give or grant.^[5][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To consider something fitting to one's dignity; to condescend to do it: The duchess did not deign to look up from her letter.^[15][3][5]
2. To condescend to give or grant, now mostly in the negative: He deigned no answer.^{[15][3][5][7]}
3. (obsolete, 1576–1661) To condescend to accept.^[5][3][7]
4. (obsolete, 1297–1400) Impersonal, to seem worthy or proper to someone.^[5][2]

Related words

• dignity
• dignify
• disdain
• dainty
• decent

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins