delinquency

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin dēlinquentia (“fault, crime”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a word of Christian writers, first found in Tertullian in the early 3rd century.^[2][7][8] It is formed from Latin dēlinquēns (“failing, offending”), the present participle of dēlinquō (“to fail, fall short, do wrong”), with the noun suffix -ia;^[2][5][4][6] the English suffix -ency has the same origin.^[2][6] The Latin verb is formed from dē- and linquō (“to leave”),^[4][9][3] from Proto-Indo-European *leykʷ- (“to leave”).^[3][9] The noun and adjective delinquent, from the same participle partly through Anglo-Norman and Middle French, is recorded from 1484.^[2][3] The OED compares the earlier delinquishment and the later delinquence, both now obsolete.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Immoral or criminal behaviour, and an offence or crime: 1603, in Philemon Holland's translation of Plutarch's Moralia.^[2] The revised OED antedates the 1989 edition, which began with 1636 and 1648;^[10][2] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1625,^[5] Etymonline to the 1630s, in the sense "failure or omission of duty",^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1630–40.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The two early senses, wrongdoing in general and failure in duty, both appear in Holland's translations of 1603 and 1606.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a fault; a failure in duty; a misdeed", quoting King Charles I on the tumults of the Civil War.^[11] During that war delinquency was also the name for giving money, arms or other service to the Royalist side, after the Parliamentary use of delinquent for a Royalist.^[2] From the 18th century, first in New Jersey, it meant a tax or debt left unpaid,^[2] and the sense of an overdue debt is still recorded in American dictionaries.^[12][13] The compound juvenile delinquency is recorded from 1816,^[2][5] and the word's main modern sense is now minor crime or antisocial behaviour, especially by young people.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1603 – immoral or criminal behaviour; an offence or crime.^[2]
• 1606 – failure in or neglect of duty; a failure to pay a debt or tax.^[2]
• 1642 – the giving of help to the Royalist cause in the English Civil War (now historical).^[2]
• 1757 – an unpaid debt or tax not yet written off, in the acts of New Jersey.^[2]
• 1816 – juvenile delinquency.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Minor crime or antisocial behaviour, especially by young people; juvenile delinquency: The council blamed the rise in delinquency on the closing of the youth club.^{[14][2][13][12]}
2. An offence or misdeed, usually a minor one.^[14][13][2]
3. Failure or neglect of one's duty or obligations; dereliction.^[14][5][2]
4. A debt on which payment is overdue, or the failure to pay a debt or tax on time.^[12][13][2]

Word family

• predelinquency
• juvenile delinquency

Related words

• delinquent
• delict
• relinquish
• relic
• derelict
• eleven

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 r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins