Etymologically
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democracy

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /dɪˈmɒk.rə.si/, US /dɪˈmɑːk.rə.si/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French démocratie,[2][3] from Medieval Latin dēmocratia,[2][3] from Ancient Greek δημοκρατία (dēmokratía, “popular government”),[2][3] from dêmos “common people”, originally “district”, and krátos “rule, strength”.[2][3][4] Greek dêmos, earlier dâmos, is cognate with Old Irish dám “following, crowd”, from PIE *dāmos “a division of the people”, from *dā- “to divide”.[3] It is related to demagogue, epidemic and demotic.[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Government by the people: 1531 in the OED, 1539 in MWU,[5][6] 1574 in Barnhart and the 1570s in Etymonline.[3][2] It was spelled democratie at first, and democracy gradually replaced it in the 17th and early 18th centuries.[3][2]

Semantic evolution

A state governed by the people is from 1574.[5] In 19th-century England the word could mean the common people, the class with no hereditary rank (1827),[5][2] and in American politics the principles or members of the Democratic Party (1825).[2][5] Democrat was first a republican of the French Revolution (1790), formed after aristocrate, and a member of the American party from 1839;[3][7] democratic is from 1602, and as the name of the party from 1829.[3]

Timeline

  • 1531 – government by the people.[5]
  • 1574 – a democratic state.[5][3]
  • 1602 – democratic.[3]
  • 1790 – democrat.[3]
  • 1825 – the Democratic Party.[5]
  • 1827 – the common people.[5]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A system of government in which the people rule, directly or through elected representatives.
  2. A country with such a government.
  3. Fair and equal treatment of everyone in an organization, with a share in decisions.
  4. The common people, seen as the source of political power.

Word family

  • antidemocracy
  • democratize
  • nondemocracy
  • predemocracy
  • participatory democracy
  • pure democracy
  • social democracy
  • Tory Democracy

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press