Etymologically
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government

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈɡʌv.ən.mənt/, /ˈɡʌv.əm.mənt/ (UK); /ˈɡʌv.ɚn.mənt/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English governement, borrowed from Old French governement (“control, direction, administration”),[2][3] from governer (“to steer; to rule”) and -ment.[4][5] Governer is from Latin gubernāre (“to steer, pilot; to direct, rule”),[2][6] a nautical borrowing from Ancient Greek κυβερνᾶν (kubernân, “to steer, pilot a ship”).[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The act of governing or ruling; also the system by which something is governed (late 14th century, in Chaucer).[2]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford date the word to the late 14th century, while Hoad gives the 16th.[2][3][7] Its early senses included the government of oneself: management of the body and moral conduct or discretion, as in Shakespeare's “want of government”.[4][3] It was used of steering a ship from 1562 to 1699.[8] The sense “the system by which a state is ruled” is from 1553,[8] and Johnson (1755) gave this as his first sense.[9] For “the governing power of a country”, the HTOED has 1541 and Etymonline 1702.[8][2] In grammar, government has meant the control of one word's case by another since 1569.[8] In Australia, Morris recorded Government as a common shortening of “Government service”.[10] In British youth slang since about 2016, one's government name is one's real name.[11]

Timeline

  • late 14th century – the act of governing (Chaucer).[2]
  • 1541 – the governing power in a country.[8]
  • 1550 – a period of rule.[8]
  • 1553 – the system by which a state is governed.[8]
  • 1554 – a territory under a governor.[8]
  • 1562 – the working or steering of a ship (obsolete by 1699).[8]
  • 1569 – (grammar) the control of one word's form by another.[8]
  • 1702 – the governing power in a place.[2]
  • 2016 – government name, one's real name (British slang).[11]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The body of people who govern a state; a particular ministry in office.
  2. The system by which a state or community is governed.
  3. The act or manner of governing; political rule.
  4. (grammar) The relation in which one word determines the form of another.
  5. (archaic) An administrative division; a territory.

Word family

  • governmental
  • governmentally
  • antigovernment
  • government-in-exile
  • nongovernment

Usage notes

In American usage government always takes a singular verb; in British usage, meaning a group of ministers, it often takes a plural one (the government are determined).[12][13] The pronunciation with the first n merged into the following m is standard.[14]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
  6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ Morris, Edward E. (1898), Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages, London: Macmillan
  11. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  13. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House