dependency

Etymology

It is formed from English dependent + -cy,^[2][3] also spelled dependancy at first, on the French model.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster derives it instead from Middle French dependance with the English suffix -y,^[5] and Dictionary.com from dependence with the same suffix.^[6] Dependent is from Old French dependant, the present participle of dependre (“to hang down”),^[2][3] from Latin dēpendeō (“to hang from, hang down; to be dependent on”), formed from dē (“from, down”) and pendeō (“to hang”).^[2] From the 16th century dependent was often reshaped after the Latin present participle dēpendēnt-,^[3] and the Latinate spelling gradually pushed the French-style spelling out of use.^[2] Johnson remarked that such words were written with -ance or -ence indifferently, as writers derived them from French or from Latin.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The relation of a thing or person to what supports it; subordination: 1593, in Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,^[3] which also has the sense "reliance".^[3] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1594 and Etymonline to the 1590s.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

The early senses were abstract: subordination, and logical or causal dependence (1597, again in Hooker).^[3] Shakespeare's Measure for Measure speaks of "such a dependency of thing on thing".^[4] From the 1610s it was also a thing that depends on something else,^[2] and between 1615 and 1670 a body of dependants or a household.^[3] Bacon wrote of acknowledging "their dependency upon the crown of England",^[7][5] and the political sense, a territory controlled by another country without forming part of it, is recorded from 1684.^[3][2] Johnson (1755) gave as senses a thing at another's disposal, the state of being subordinate, something not principal, and the connection of consequences with premises.^[7] The OED records an annexe of a house from 1822,^[3] and the word is now used in psychology for excessive reliance on another person or on a drug,^[8] and in the United States for the state of living on public relief.^[5]

Timeline

• 1593 – subordination; reliance, in Hooker.^[3]
• 1597 – logical or causal dependence.^[3]
• 1610s – something that depends on something else.^[2]
• 1615 – a body of dependants (obsolete by 1670).^[3]
• 1684 – a territory subject to another state.^[3][2]
• 1755 – Johnson lists it with dependence.^[7]
• 1822 – an annexe or outbuilding of a house.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A territory governed by a state of which it is not an integral part, usually one that does not border it: a Crown dependency.^[8][5][3]
2. The state of relying on someone or something; dependence.^[8][5]
3. In psychology, excessive reliance on another person or on a drug; addiction.^[8]
4. Something dependent or subordinate, especially a thing that follows necessarily from something else.^[5][8][3]
5. The condition of relying on public assistance for one's living.^[5]

Word family

• codependency
• chemical dependency

Related words

• dependence
• dependent
• depend
• pendant
• pending

References

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