detest

Etymology

It is borrowed from French détester,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} recorded in Villon in the 15th century,^[2] from Latin dētestor (“to curse while calling a god to witness; to denounce, abhor”),^[2][3][5][8] formed from dē- (“from, down”) and testor (“to bear witness, call to witness”),^[2][3][4] from testis (“witness”).^{[3][4][9][10]} Barnhart treats the French verb as a learned borrowing from Latin.^[11] Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Hoad, Collins and the Shorter Oxford take the English verb straight from Latin,^{[8][9][12][13]} and Hoad and the Shorter Oxford add that it may be partly a back-formation from detestation, recorded from the 15th century.^[9][13] The American Heritage Dictionary takes testis back to Proto-Indo-European *trei-.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To curse, calling God to witness, or to denounce: 1533–4, in an Act of Henry VIII.^[2] The sense of hating follows before 1535, in Thomas More.^[2][11] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the verb to the late 15th century,^[13][14] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged has about 1535 for the sense of disliking intensely.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb meant to denounce someone with one's testimony, or to call down a solemn curse on them.^[11][3][8] English had that sense by 1533 and the sense of hating by 1535, and only the second is left now.^[2] Ayto says the change from open denunciation to inward loathing was complete by the 18th century,^[10] and the OED's last record of the older sense is from 1745.^[2] Trench noted that 17th-century writers often still meant openly to witness against a thing, as in Holland's account of satires "detesting and reproving the misdemeanours of people", and in Shakespeare's "Detest them, curse them" in Cymbeline.^[15] Johnson (1755) records only "To hate; to abhor; to abominate".^[16] The verb was sometimes misused for attest or protest, from 1562,^[2] and a rare noun detest, hatred, lasted from 1638 to 1671.^[2]

Timeline

• 1533 – to curse, calling God to witness; to denounce (obsolete after 1745).^[2][17]
• before 1535 – to hate or dislike intensely, in Thomas More.^[2][11]
• before 1555 – with an infinitive or a clause (rare).^[2]
• 1562 – misused for attest or protest.^[2][17]
• 1638 – noun, hatred (obsolete by 1671).^[2][17]
• 1688 – to renounce solemnly or under oath (obsolete, rare).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To dislike intensely; to loathe or abhor: My cat detests the vacuum cleaner.^{[8][12][4][2]}
2. (obsolete, 1533–1745) To curse or denounce, calling God to witness.^[2][8]

Word family

• detester
• undetesting

Related words

• detestable
• detestation
• testify
• testimony
• testicle
• testament
• attest
• contest
• protest

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 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 e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)