disfigure

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English disfiguren, also defiguren,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman disfigurer, a variant of diffigurer,^[4] or Old French desfigurer,^[3][5][6][2] and directly borrowed from Medieval Latin disfigūrō (“to destroy, deform; to disguise”), a variant of diffigūrō.^[4][6] Klein reconstructs a Vulgar Latin *disfigūrō instead.^[7] The verb in Latin is formed from dis- and figūrō (“to form, shape”),^[4][6] from figūra (“shape, form, figure”),^[6][7] the source of figure,^[8][9] from Proto-Indo-European *dheigh- (“to form, build”).^[6][3] The OED compares Spanish desfigurar, Italian disfigurare and the verb defigure.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To spoil a person's looks: about 1385, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, "His face was so disfigured Of maladie".^[2][4] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded far earlier, from 1121–35, already for disfiguring, harming and disguising.^[10]

Semantic evolution

From the first English records the verb had two lines of meaning, both inherited from French: to spoil the looks of something, and to disguise, the sense in which Barnhart puts the word about 1375.^[4][10][11] Chaucer used it four times, for both senses.^[12] "Disguise" died out in the early 18th century.^[4][9] The spoiling sense also became figurative, for making anything worse, by 1500, and the MED has the verb for blemishing the soul and discrediting a book;^[4][2] from before 1643 until 1804 it could mean to misrepresent someone.^[4] A specialized use, to carve a peacock at table, appears in a work printed by Caxton in about 1477 and is now archaic.^[4][13][9] Johnson (1755) defined the verb as to change a thing to a worse form, to deform or to mangle, with quotations from Shakespeare and Milton.^[14] A noun, a disfigurement, was used from Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale to 1697.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1385 – to spoil the appearance of a person.^[2][4]
• c. 1386 – to disguise (obsolete by 1713).^[4]
• c. 1395 – noun, a disfigurement (obsolete by 1697).^[4]
• c. 1477 – to carve a peacock.^[4]
• before 1500 – figuratively, to change for the worse.^[4]
• 1605 – to become misshapen.^[4]
• before 1643 – to misrepresent (obsolete by 1804).^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spoil the appearance or shape of a person or thing, often permanently; to deface or deform: A long scar disfigured his cheek.^[15][13][4]
2. To make the quality or effect of something worse; to mar: Spelling errors disfigured an otherwise fine essay.^[15][4]
3. (rare) To become misshapen.^[4]
4. (archaic) To carve a peacock at table.^[13][4]
5. (obsolete, c. 1386–1713) To disguise by changing the appearance.^[13][4][9]

Word family

• disfiguration
• disfigurer
• disfigurement

Related words

• figure
• defigure
• effigy
• fiction
• feign

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
13. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins