fairness

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fairnesse,^[2][3] inherited from Old English fægernes (“beauty”),^[4][2][5] formed from Old English fæger (“beautiful, fair”) + -nes.^[2][4][6] The OED classes the noun as inherited from Germanic and compares Old High German fagarnessī (“splendour, glory”),^[7] and Old English also has a prefixed form, gefægernes.^[7] The adjective fair goes back to Proto-Germanic *fagraz,^[4] which Watkins, as Etymonline reports, tentatively takes from Proto-Indo-European *pek- (“to make pretty”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Beauty: in early Old English, in the Vespasian Psalter, and then of people and of things.^[7] Bosworth–Toller quotes the Blickling Homilies: On heofona wuldres fægernesse, "with the beauty of heaven's glory".^[5]

Semantic evolution

Old English already used the word for visible beauty, elegance of diction, a pleasant condition and moral or spiritual beauty,^[5] and Ælfric used it of polished speech.^[7] Chaucer's fourteen uses mean beauty or graciousness.^[3] Middle English added "courtesy" (about 1275 to 1450), the phrase by fairness for gentle means (before 1398 to 1596), and fine weather (before 1400).^[7][6] The sense that is now the main one, honesty and impartial dealing, appears about 1450, in Mum and the Sothsegger,^[7][6] or the mid-15th century in Etymonline.^[4] Johnson (1755) still put beauty first and "honesty; candour" second,^[8] while Merriam-Webster Unabridged singles out fair or impartial treatment,^[2] and the OED now calls the beauty sense somewhat archaic and literary.^[7] The sense of light skin or hair is recorded from 1555,^[7][9] or from the 1590s in Etymonline.^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records a technical use for the degree of streamlining of an aircraft.^[2]

Timeline

• Old English – beauty, of a person, a thing or a place.^[7][5]
• Old English – polished, elegant speech, in Ælfric's Grammar.^[7][5]
• c. 1275 – courtesy (obsolete by 1450).^[7][9]
• before 1398 – by fairness, by gentle means (obsolete by 1596).^[7]
• before 1400 – of weather, freedom from rain and wind.^[7]
• c. 1450 – honesty, impartiality, fair dealing.^[7][9]
• 1555 – lightness of complexion, skin or hair.^[7][9]
• 1690 – in fairness, in order to be fair or honest.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being fair; impartial and just treatment: The umpire was respected for her fairness.^{[2][10][7][6]}
2. in fairness, in all fairness: if the situation is judged honestly: In all fairness, the delay was not his doing.^[7][10]
3. Lightness of complexion, skin or hair; blondness.^[7][10][6]
4. (literary) Beauty: the fairness of her face.^[7][6][8]
5. Of weather, the state of being free from rain or wind; fineness.^[7][6]
6. (rare) Of speech, polish or eloquence.^[7]
7. The degree of streamlining, as of an aircraft.^[2]
8. (obsolete, before 1398–1596) Gentle or peaceable means, in by fairness and with fairness.^[7][6]

Word family

• fairness doctrine

Related words

• fair
• unfair
• unfairness

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ 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.
9. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House