doctrinal

Etymology

The adjective is inherited from Middle English doctrinal,^[2] borrowed from Late Latin doctrīnālis,^[3][4][5][6] a word recorded in Isidore,^[3] from doctrīna (“teaching, learning”),^[3][7][5] itself from doctor (“teacher”),^[7] with the suffix -ālis, English -al.^[6][4] Etymonline also gives Old French doctrinal as a source, and Merriam-Webster Unabridged allows Middle French or Late Latin.^[7][8] The noun was borrowed from the French word, recorded in the 13th century,^[3] which is from Medieval Latin doctrīnāle, the neuter of the Late Latin adjective used as a noun.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of Scripture, dealing with doctrine or with rules of conduct: about 1449, in a work of Pecock.^[2] The noun, a textbook, is recorded about the same time, about 1450 in the OED's dating,^[3] and the late Middle English date of the adjective is shared by Dictionary.com (1400–50) and the Shorter Oxford.^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

The noun began as the title of a famous grammar textbook by Alexander of Villedieu, and was then used for any book of instruction, until the mid 17th century;^[3][4] once, about 1504, it even meant an instructor.^[3] The adjective, in the OED's first quotation from 1570, meant relating to or containing doctrine;^[3] from 1597 to 1642 it was also used for instructive or didactic, as in Hooker.^[3][8] Johnson (1755) defined it as containing doctrine or something formally taught, quoting South's sermons.^[9] The plural noun, matters of doctrine, appears in 1619 and is now archaic.^[3][8] Today Merriam-Webster Unabridged adds the sense preoccupied with doctrine.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1449 – adjective, of Scripture, dealing with doctrine or precepts of conduct.^[2]
• c. 1450 – noun, a textbook, at first the grammar of Alexander of Villedieu (obsolete by 1653).^[3][4] The Middle English Dictionary has the sense of a treatise on a field of knowledge from Lydgate, before 1456.^[2]
• c. 1504 – noun, an instructor (rare, obsolete).^[3]
• 1570 – relating to doctrine; containing or teaching a doctrine.^[3]
• 1597 – instructive, didactic (obsolete by 1642).^[3]
• 1619 – plural noun, points of doctrine.^[3]
• 1628 – derived from instruction (rare, obsolete), in Hobbes's translation of Thucydides.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to, or concerned with doctrine: The council split over a doctrinal question.^[8][10][3]
2. Containing or teaching a doctrine; set out to be taught and believed.^[8][3]
3. Preoccupied with doctrine.^[8]
4. (obsolete) Serving to teach; didactic (1597–1642).^[3][8]

Noun

1. (archaic) In the plural, matters or points of doctrine.^[8][3]
2. (obsolete) A manual or textbook of instruction (c. 1450–1653).^[8][3][4]

Word family

• doctrinally
• doctrinality
• nondoctrinal
• undoctrinal

Related words

• docent
• docile
• doctor
• doctorate
• doctrinaire
• doctrine
• document
• indoctrinate

Usage notes

The OED notes that the historical pronunciation stresses the first syllable, as Bailey and Todd gave it, and that Johnson's stress on the second syllable passed over the Latin, French and Middle English adjectives, which were stressed on their last syllable, to go back to Latin doctrīna.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the stress on the second syllable as frequent in British and occasional in American English.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin