forgiveness

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English foryevenesse, also foryivenesse and forgivenesse,^[2] inherited from Old English forgifnes, also forgifennes and forgiefenes,^[3][4][5] formed from Old English forgifen + -nes.^[4][2][5] Etymonline describes the form as contracted from a combination of forgiven and -ness.^[6] The participle forgifen belongs to forgiefan (“to forgive”),^[7][5] which is formed from for- and giefan (“to give”), the ancestors of for- and give.^[4] Etymonline traces the second part to Proto-Indo-European *ghabh- (“to give or receive”), and takes the sense of the Old English verb as a loan translation of Vulgar Latin *perdōnō.^[6] The Old English noun corresponds to Dutch vergiffenis.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of forgiving, and also indulgent permission: the first record is in the Old English translation of Bede.^[4] Dictionary.com dates the word to before 900,^[8] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to before the 12th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Old English noun already covered a range of release: the remission of a fine or tax, release from captivity, and the pardon of a sin or offence.^[3] The sense "permission" is recorded only in Old English.^[4] From about 1175, in the Ormulum, the word could also name a quality of character, the disposition to forgive.^[4] Chaucer used it eleven times, nine of them in the spelling foryifnesse;^[9] Middle English also had a noun forgift, from the early 14th century.^[6] The King James Bible of 1611 has the plural forgivenesses at Daniel 9:9, which the OED calls a Hebraism.^[4][10] Johnson (1755) separated the pardon of an offender, the pardon of an offence, and "tenderness; willingness to pardon".^[10] Merriam-Webster Unabridged now marks the sense of willingness as archaic, though Collins lists it without a label.^[2][11] The word is also used of debts and taxes.^[2][4]

Timeline

• Old English – pardon of a fault, remission of a debt; also indulgent permission.^[4][3]
• c. 1175 – willingness to forgive.^[4][12]
• 1611 – plural forgivenesses, in the King James Bible.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of forgiving someone or something, or the state of being forgiven; pardon: She wrote to her brother to ask his forgiveness.^{[11][13][2][5]}
2. Willingness to forgive; a merciful disposition (marked archaic by Merriam-Webster Unabridged).^[11][2][4]
3. The cancelling of a debt, tax or similar obligation; remission: The charity campaigned for the forgiveness of student loans.^[2][4]
4. (obsolete, Old English) Indulgent permission.^[4][14][3]

Related words

• forgive
• give
• for-
• -ness

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
10. ^ 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.
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press