disobey

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English disobeien, also spelled desobeien and disabeien,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French desobeir (“to disobey; to refuse service or homage”).^{[4][5][3][6][2]} The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1323–25.^[7] The French verb goes back to a Vulgar Latin *disoboediō,^[3][5][8][4] which replaced Late Latin inoboediō (“to disobey”) by putting dis- in place of the prefix.^[5][6][4][9] The Late Latin verb is a back-formation from inoboediēns (“not obeying”), formed from in- (“not”) and the present participle of oboediō (“to obey”).^[5][6] The same Romance verb gave Old Occitan desobedir and Italian disubbidire.^[4] The Latin verb is the source of obey, and is formed from ob- (“to”) and audiō (“to hear”).^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To refuse or fail to obey, both with no object ("to be disobedient") and with a person as object: 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis.^[4][2] Barnhart dates the verb to about 1390, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,^[6] and Etymonline to the late 14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The transitive use, with the person or the order disobeyed as object, continues a construction that the OED traces to an earlier dative, as in French il me désobéit, "he disobeys (to) me".^[4] Middle English could also say disobey to a person or command, a use the OED records from before 1450 to 1526.^[4][2][9] Chaucer used the verb twice and Gower four times.^[10] Johnson (1755) defined it as to break commands or transgress prohibitions.^[11] The related nouns and adjective followed: disobedience probably before 1400 and disobedient about 1412, which displaced the earlier disobeissant and disobeiaunt.^[6]

Timeline

• 1393 – intransitive, to be disobedient; and transitive, to refuse or neglect to obey a person or command.^[4][2]
• before 1450 – disobey to a person or rule (obsolete after 1526).^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To refuse or fail to do what a person, a rule or an order requires: The sailors disobeyed the captain and stayed ashore.^[12][13][14]
2. To be disobedient; to refuse to obey: A dog that disobeys at home will do so in the park too.^[12][4]

Word family

• disobeyer

Related words

• disobedient
• disobedience
• obey
• obedient
• audience

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 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 c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press