id

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɪd/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin id (“it”), used to translate German Es “it”,^[2][3][4] which Freud used as a noun in Das Ich und das Es (1923), translated as The Ego and the Id.^[2][3] Groddeck used es in the same way in Das Buch vom Es (1923), following Nietzsche's use of it for impersonal, instinctual forces.^[2] Latin id is from the pronoun stem Proto-Indo-European *i-.^[3] It is related to ego.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

1924, in the translation of Freud's collected papers by Joan Riviere and others, according to Barnhart and Etymonline;^[2][3] the OED has a first quotation from 1917.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Freudian theory the id is the wholly unconscious part of the psyche, the source of instinctual drives, beside the ego and the superego.^[6][7] The word kept this technical sense, and is used more loosely of primitive impulses in general.^[8]

Timeline

• 1917 – OED first quotation.^[5]
• 1923 – Freud's Das Ich und das Es.^[2]
• 1924 – in English, in Riviere's translation.^[2][3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. In psychoanalysis, the part of the psyche that is entirely unconscious and is the source of instinctual impulses demanding immediate satisfaction.

Related words

• ego
• superego
• identity

Usage notes

ID, short for identification, is a separate word, used for an identity card from 1941 and as a verb, to identify, from 1944.^[4][6] In Weismann's theory of heredity an id, from 1893, was a unit of germ plasm,^[5][8] and the Muslim festival Eid is also spelled id.^[8]

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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
7. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press