emulation

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin aemulātiō (“rivalry, emulation, competition”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} perhaps partly also borrowed from Middle French émulation,^[4][3] a French word recorded from the 13th century.^[3] The Latin noun of action is formed on the past participle stem of aemulor (“to rival, strive to excel”),^[2][3][4] from aemulus (“striving, rivalling; a rival”).^[3][7][5] Klein relates aemulus by ablaut to imitor (“to copy, imitate”) and imāgō (“likeness, image”),^[5][4] the sources of imitate and image.^[5] Etymonline traces it through Proto-Italic *aimo- to Proto-Indo-European *aim- (“to copy”).^[3] The verb emulate followed in 1589, either as a back-formation from emulation or from the Latin past participle aemulātus.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The endeavour to equal or surpass others, or the desire to do so: 1552, in Huloet's Abcedarium Anglico Latinum.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster dates the word ten years earlier, to 1542,^[8][9] and Etymonline to the 1550s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries the word often had a darker sense than today: from 1561 it could mean a grudge against those who are better, envy or disparagement of a superior; from 1588 it also meant ambitious rivalry or ill will between rivals; both senses were obsolete by the 18th century.^[2][6] Trench quotes a sermon of South's praising emulation, as against envy, as a generous imitation of something excellent, and then shows that early writers often used the word as an exact equivalent of envy: the translators' preface to the Authorized Version, Shakespeare's "pale and bloodless emulation" in Troilus and Cressida, and the Rheims New Testament, which says the patriarchs "through emulation" sold Joseph into Egypt.^[10] The Douay Bible of 1610 used it for the jealousy ascribed to God, rendering the Vulgate's aemulatio.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave "rivalry; desire of superiority" as the first sense, with a quotation from Coriolanus.^[11] In 1965 the word gained a computing sense, the technique by which one computer runs programs written for another kind of computer.^[2]

Timeline

• 1552 – the endeavour or desire to equal or surpass others.^[2][4]
• 1561 – envy of those who are superior (obsolete by 1771).^[2]
• 1588 – ambitious rivalry; ill will between rivals (obsolete by 1646).^[2]
• 1610 – jealousy ascribed to God, in the Douay Bible.^[2]
• 1965 – computing, the running of one computer's programs on another.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The effort or desire to equal or surpass someone, especially by imitation: The young painter's early work shows a close emulation of her teacher.^{[12][13][9][2]}
2. The act of imitating another person or thing.^[12][13][8]
3. (computing) The technique of making one computer or system run software written for another, by means of special hardware or software.^[2][13][8]
4. (archaic) Jealous or envious rivalry; ill will toward a rival or a superior.^{[12][13][8][2]}

Word family

• emulative
• emulatively

Related words

• emulate
• emulator
• emulous
• imitate
• image

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
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 c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin