elasticity

Etymology

It is formed from English elastic + -ity.^[2][3][4] The OED compares French élasticité, and Etymonline allows that the English noun may have been taken from the French one.^[2][5] Elastic is from New Latin elasticus,^[2][5] which first appears, apparently as a new word, in Pecquet's “Dissertatio Anatomica” (1651), where “elastica virtus” is the "impulsive force" of the air.^[2] Etymonline says the adjective was coined in French in the 1650s as a scientific term for gases.^[5] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek ἐλαστικός (elastikós, “driving, propulsive”), from the stem of ἐλαύνω (elaúnō, “to drive”);^[2] Etymonline gives instead ἐλαστός (elastós, “ductile, flexible”), and notes that the verb is of uncertain origin, perhaps, according to Watkins, from an extended form of Proto-Indo-European *ele- (“to go”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The property of a body of returning to its former shape or size: 1664, in Henry Power's Experimental Philosophy.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the noun to the 1660s,^[5] and Dictionary.com to 1655–65.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The noun followed the adjective, which was first used of air and gases that expand of their own accord, and was applied to solids from the 1670s.^[2][5] Figurative uses came soon: buoyancy of mind or character, the power to recover from low spirits, from 1678,^[2] and the capacity to be "stretched", flexibility or accommodatingness, from 1801, in a letter of Jane Austen.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as the force by which bodies try to return to the position from which an outside force has moved them.^[7] In economics, the word has meant from 1925 the responsiveness of supply or demand to changes in other factors, such as price;^[2][3] the Shorter Oxford dates this use to the late 19th century.^[3]

Timeline

• 1664 – the property of returning to an original shape or size after deformation.^[2][6]
• 1678 – figuratively, buoyancy of mind or character.^[2]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as the force by which bodies restore themselves to their former posture.^[7]
• 1801 – capacity for being stretched; flexibility, in Jane Austen.^[2]
• 1925 – in economics, the sensitivity of supply or demand to changes in price or other factors.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The property of a material or body that lets it return to its original shape or size after being stretched, squeezed or bent: the elasticity of a rubber band.^[8][6][2]
2. The degree to which a body shows this property.^[9]
3. Flexibility or adaptability; the ability to recover quickly from setbacks, as of mood or spirits: the elasticity of youth.^[8][6][2]
4. (economics) The degree to which supply or demand responds to changes in price, income or other factors: the price elasticity of petrol.^[8][6][3]

Word family

• aeroelasticity
• magnetoelasticity
• nonelasticity
• photoelasticity
• unelasticity

Related words

• elastic
• elastomer
• plasticity

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 n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin