deprecate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dēprecātus (“prayed against, warded off”), the past participle of dēprecor (“to avert by prayer, plead in excuse”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} formed from dē- (“away”) and precor (“to pray”),^[3][4][8] from Proto-Indo-European *prek- (“to ask, entreat”).^[3][8] Barnhart leaves open a back-formation from the earlier noun deprecation (1566).^[4] The Latin verb belongs with pray and imprecate.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make prayer or supplication to a person, to beseech: 1624, in Bishop F. White's Replie to Iesuit Fishers Answere.^[2][4] Etymonline gives the 1620s for "to pray against or for deliverance from",^[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the sense of praying against to 1628.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The first English uses keep the Latin idea of praying something away.^[3][2] From there the word moved to pleading earnestly against a course of action, and so to expressing disapproval, by the 1640s.^[2][4][3] Johnson (1755) still gave only senses of prayer and averting: to implore mercy of, to avert, and to pray deliverance from.^[9] The use "to call down evil by prayer" is recorded only from 1746 to 1790.^[2] From 1897 the word was used more generally for disapproving of a person or a quality, and for disparaging or belittling,^[2] a sense the Shorter Oxford puts down to association with depreciate.^[10] In computing, a deprecated software feature is one marked as superseded and best avoided.^[11][8]

Timeline

• 1624 – to beseech a person (obsolete by 1822).^[2][4]
• 1626 – absolute, to make supplication, in a sermon by Donne (obsolete).^[2]
• 1629 – to pray against evil, to seek to avert it by prayer.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has this from 1628.^[5]
• 1641 – to protest against, to show disapproval of.^[4] The OED's first quotation is from before 1643.^[2]
• 1746 – to call down evil by prayer (obsolete by 1790).^[2]
• 1897 – to disparage or belittle.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To express disapproval of; to protest against: The committee deprecated any change to the rules.^{[11][5][2][8]}
2. To belittle or disparage a person or quality.^[11][8][2]
3. (computing) To mark a software feature as superseded, so that it should be avoided and may be phased out.^[11][8]
4. (archaic) To pray against an evil; to try to avert it by prayer.^{[2][5][10][11]}
5. (obsolete, 1624–1822) To beseech a person.^[2][5][10]
6. (obsolete, 1746–90) To call down evil by prayer.^[2][10]

Word family

• deprecatingly
• deprecation
• deprecator
• deprecatory

Related words

• pray
• imprecate
• precarious
• depreciate

Usage notes

The sense "to disparage" overlaps with depreciate, and the OED notes that the two are sometimes confused.^[2][10]

References

1. ^ a b 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ 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 c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins