expectancy

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin expectantia,^[2][3][4][5] from Latin exspectāns, the present participle of exspectō (“to await, look out for, hope”),^[3][4][6] the source of expect.^[3][6] The verb is formed from ex- (“thoroughly”) and spectō (“to look”), a frequentative of speciō (“to look at”), from Proto-Indo-European *spek- (“to observe”).^[3] The English suffix is -ancy.^[3][2][7] The earlier expectance was formed from expectant, perhaps after the same Latin noun, which is recorded in a British source from about 1375.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The act or state of waiting for someone or something: 1592, in William Wyrley's True Use of Armorie, a sense obsolete by 1697.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1590s,^[3] Merriam-Webster to 1600.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The lasting sense, the feeling or state of expecting, is recorded from 1609, in Samuel Daniel.^[2][7] In Shakespeare's Hamlet the word was used of a person on whom hopes are set, a rare sense that died out by 1807.^[2][7] From 1614 to 1879 it also meant a reason for expecting something, or prospects of an inheritance.^[2] The legal use, a future right to property, as a remainder or reversion, dates from 1650 in the phrase in expectancy;^[2] the noun alone has it from 1696.^[2][7] Expectancy of life is recorded from 1752^[2] and life expectancy, the average number of years a person may be expected to live, from 1848;^[2] this statistical use is now the commonest.^[8][4] Johnson (1755) treated expectance and expectancy as one word, meaning expectation, and quoted Shakespeare's Othello.^[9]

Timeline

• 1592 – waiting for someone or something (obsolete by 1697).^[2]
• 1609 – the feeling or state of expecting.^[2]
• 1614 – grounds for expecting; prospects (obsolete by 1879).^[2]
• 1624 – property to which a person may later be entitled.^[2]
• 1650 – in expectancy, in law, of property.^[2]
• 1752 – expectancy of life.^[2]
• 1848 – life expectancy.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The state of expecting something; anticipation: There was an air of expectancy in the theatre.^[8][4][7]
2. Something expected, especially an amount calculated from an average, as in life expectancy.^[8][4]
3. In law, a right to future possession, especially of property: an estate in expectancy.^[8][2][7]

Related words

• expect
• expectant
• expectance
• expectation
• spectacle

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 q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.