discriminatory

Etymology

It is formed from English discriminate + -ory.^[2][3][4] The OED compares the earlier discriminator, discriminative and discriminating.^[2] Discriminate is from Latin discrīminō (“to divide, separate, distinguish”),^[2][3][5] from discrīmen (“interval, distinction, difference”),^[3][2] from discernō (“to separate, distinguish, perceive”),^[3][5] formed from dis- (“off, away”) and cernō (“to distinguish, separate, sift”),^[3] from Proto-Indo-European *krei- (“to sieve”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Perceiving or making distinctions: 1745, in Reflections upon Church-government.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the word to 1803, and Dictionary.com to 1820–30.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word took on a neutral economic sense, originally American: of a duty or tax, varying so as to treat different classes of goods or taxpayers more or less favourably (1820).^[2][7] From 1896, again first in the United States, it described treatment that is unjust or prejudicial to a person or group, especially on grounds of race or sex;^[2] Etymonline dates the racial sense only by 1954.^[3] This sense follows that of the verb discriminate, whose adverse use, to make distinctions prejudicial to a class of persons, is first recorded in American English in 1866.^[3] The older sense "making fine distinctions", shared with discriminative, survives in Collins.^[8]

Timeline

• 1745 – perceiving or making distinctions.^[2][6]
• 1820 – economics, of a tax or duty: varying between classes of goods or taxpayers.^[2]
• 1896 – treating people unjustly on grounds such as race.^[2]
• 1954 – racial prejudice sense, according to Etymonline.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Treating a person or group unfairly, especially because of race, sex or religion; showing prejudice: discriminatory hiring rules.^[8][6][2]
2. Of a tax or duty, applied differently to different classes of goods or taxpayers.^[2][6]
3. Able to make fine distinctions; discriminating.^[8][2]
4. (statistics) Of a test, unbiased.^[8]

Word family

• discriminatorily
• undiscriminatory
• nondiscriminatory

Related words

• discriminate
• discrimination
• discriminative
• discern
• crime
• certain

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins