disobedient

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English disobedient,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French desobedient,^{[4][5][2][6][7][8]} also given as Middle French.^[3] The French word is a Romance formation in place of Ecclesiastical Latin inoboediēns,^[4][7] reconstructed by Etymonline and Klein as Vulgar Latin *disoboediēns,^[5][6] from dis- and Latin oboediēns (“obedient”),^[4][5] the present participle of oboediō (“to obey”).^[5] Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster Unabridged analyse the French word as des- and obedient.^[9][3] Compare Italian disubbidiente and Spanish desobediente.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Refusing to obey: in Hoccleve, in a text of 1412 preserved in a manuscript of before 1450: “He rathir chees be disobedient To his vengeable wil, and his oth kepe”.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century, spelled dysobedyent,^[5] but the OED's first record is from before 1500, in the poem it calls “Why I can't be a Nun”, also quoted in the Middle English Dictionary (about 1475): “dame dysobedyent”.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

English already had inobedient, from the early 14th century, and disobeissant, from Old French desobeissant, from the late 14th.^[5] The meaning has stayed close to its first one, the failure to carry out a command or duty.^[4][7] Johnson (1755) defined it as not observant of lawful authority, quoting 1 Kings: “The man of God was disobedient unto the word of the Lord”.^[10] From 1588 it was also applied to things, in the sense of unyielding or stubborn,^[4] and Webster (1828) still had “not yielding to exciting force or power”, of the effect of medicines;^[11] Merriam-Webster Unabridged now calls this archaic.^[3] A noun, a disobedient person, was in use from 1548 to 1650.^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also separates a habitual sense, unruly.^[3]

Timeline

• 1412 – refusing or failing to obey.^[2] The OED's first record is from before 1500.^[4]
• 1548 – noun, a disobedient person (obsolete by 1650).^[4]
• 1588 – of things, unyielding, stubborn.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Refusing or failing to obey a person, rule or order: The disobedient recruits were confined to barracks.^[12][3][4]
2. Habitually badly behaved; unruly.^[3]
3. (archaic) Not yielding; intractable.^[3][4]

Word family

• disobediently

Related words

• disobedience
• obedient
• obey
• disobey

References

1. ^ 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 d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins