depository

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin dēpositōrium,^[2][3][4][5] which Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the Oxford Dictionary of English call Late Latin,^[6][7] formed from dēpositus, the past participle of dēpōnō (“to lay aside, put down”), and the suffix -ōrium.^[3][7][6] The OED allows that the English word may instead have been formed on the same pattern,^[2] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Webster's Third and Dictionary.com also analyse it as deposit with the suffix -ory.^[6][8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person or body to whom something, usually something immaterial, is entrusted for safekeeping: 1656, in H. Hammond's Disarmers Dexterities Examined.^[2][6][7]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was that of a depositary, a person entrusted with something.^[2][4][7] The sense now usual, a place or receptacle where things are stored for safekeeping, a storehouse, is recorded from 1750, in Beawes's Lex Mercatoria;^[2][3] Etymonline dates the word from this sense.^[3] Johnson (1755) wrote that depositary properly referred to persons and depository to places, while noting that Addison had confused them.^[9]

Timeline

• 1656 – a person or body entrusted with something for safekeeping.^[2][6]
• 1750 – a place where things are deposited for safekeeping, a storehouse.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A place where things are deposited for storage or safekeeping; a warehouse or repository: The old films are kept in a climate-controlled depository.^{[10][6][11][2]}
2. A person or group entrusted with something for safekeeping; a depositary or trustee.^[10][6][2]

Adjective

1. Of or relating to a depository.^[6]

Word family

• subdepository

Related words

• deposit
• depositary
• repository
• position

Usage notes

Johnson (1755) distinguished depositary for persons from depository for places,^[9] and Collins still gives depository as a variant spelling of depositary in the sense of a person entrusted with something.^[11] Grammarphobia notes that the two words depository and repository overlap, both naming a place where things are stored, but that repository has the wider range, from a warehouse or burial vault to a person who keeps secrets;^[12] repository, from Latin repōnō (“to put away, store”), is also the older word in English, from the 15th century.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b O'Conner, Patricia T.; Kellerman, Stewart, The Grammarphobia Blog, grammarphobia.com, p. "Book ‘depository’ or ‘repository’?", 15 December 2017