Etymologically
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fidelity

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /fɪˈdɛlɪti/[1]
  • US: /fɪˈdɛləti/, /faɪ-/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fidelite,[2][3][4] borrowed from Middle French fidélité,[3][4][5][6] which Etymonline and the MED take as Old French,[7][2] or directly borrowed from Latin fidēlitās (“faithfulness, loyalty”).[8][9][10][11] The Latin noun is formed from fidēlis (“faithful”), from fidēs (“faith”),[6][7][12][3] from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- (“to trust, confide, persuade”).[7][12] Klein relates the Latin to foedus (“compact, treaty”), and the root to Old English biddan (“to ask”).[13] fealty comes from the same Latin noun through Old French.[9][5][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Faithfulness, trust; also fealty and allegiance: probably before 1425, in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon.[3][2] The OED's first record, for faithfulness or loyalty to a person or bond, is from 1509, in Alexander Barclay's Shyp of Folys.[6]

Semantic evolution

From faithfulness to a lord, party or bond the word spread in the early 16th century to honesty and truthfulness (1534–1709) and to a pledge or word of honour, as in by my fidelity (1531–1616).[6] Johnson (1755) gave "honesty; veracity" as its first sense.[11] Faithfulness in marriage is recorded from 1694.[6] From 1708, in Pope, it was used of a description or translation that matches its original,[6] and since 1878 of how closely a reproduced sound or picture matches the original,[6][7] the sense behind high fidelity and hi-fi.[6] Ecologists have used it since 1932 for how closely a species is tied to a plant community.[6]

Timeline

  • probably before 1425 – fidelite, faithfulness, allegiance.[3][2]
  • 1509 – faithfulness, loyalty.[6]
  • 1531 – a pledge, word of honour (obsolete by 1616).[6]
  • 1534 – honesty, truthfulness (obsolete by 1709).[6]
  • 1694 – faithfulness in marriage.[6]
  • 1708 – exactness of a description or translation.[6]
  • 1878 – accuracy of reproduced sound.[6][7]
  • 1880 – fidelity insurance.[6]
  • 1932 – in ecology, the tie of a species to a plant community.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Faithfulness or loyalty to a person, cause or duty: His fidelity to the party never wavered.[5][14][6]
  2. Faithfulness to one's husband, wife or partner.[5][14][6]
  3. Accuracy in detail; close agreement with the facts or with an original: the fidelity of the translation.[5][14][6]
  4. The degree to which a system such as an amplifier or a radio reproduces the sound or picture it receives.[14][5][6]
  5. (obsolete, 1534–1709) Honesty, veracity.[6][11]

Word family

  • high fidelity
  • affidavit
  • bide
  • bona fide
  • faith
  • infidel
  • nullifidian
  • solifidian
  • fealty
  • infidelity
  • confide

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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins