Etymologically
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idea

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /aɪˈdɪə/, US /aɪˈdiː.ə/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ydea, borrowed from Latin idea (“Platonic idea, archetype”),[2][3] from Ancient Greek ἰδέα (idéa, “look, semblance, form; kind”),[2][3][4] from ἰδεῖν (ideîn, “to see”),[2][5][3] from Proto-Indo-European *weid- (“to see”).[2][6] Cicero still wrote the word in Greek.[2] Barnhart thinks Old French idee was probably also an influence.[3] It is related to wit, vision, idol, idyll, history and kaleidoscope.[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Platonic philosophy, an ideal form or archetype: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew's De Proprietatibus Rerum.[3] Etymonline also gives “the concept of a thing in the mind of God”.[2]

Semantic evolution

The Greek word first meant the look of a thing, and Plato made it the eternal pattern of which individual things are copies.[4][2] In English, “something imagined or fancied” appears in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost (1588), “a mental image recalled from memory” in 1589, and “a mental image” in general in 1612.[3] The sense “a plan of something to be done” is also from the 1610s,[2] and “any result of thinking” from about 1645.[3][2] Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant developed the philosophical sense further.[2] The form idee, as in Dutch and German, survives in English dialects.[2][8] Ideal is from the 17th century,[7] idée fixe from 1836, and the colloquial big idea from 1908.[2]

Timeline

  • before 1398 – a Platonic archetype (Trevisa).[3]
  • 1588 – a fancy (Love's Labour's Lost).[3]
  • 1589 – an image recalled from memory.[3]
  • 1610s – a plan of action.[2]
  • 1612 – a mental image.[3]
  • c. 1645 – any result of thinking.[3]
  • 1836 – idée fixe.[2]
  • 1908 – big idea.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A thought or conception that exists in the mind as the product of mental activity.
  2. An opinion, belief or principle.
  3. A plan, scheme or method.
  4. The gist or point of something: get the idea.
  5. A vague notion or fancy.
  6. A theme or motif.
  7. (philosophy) In Plato, an eternal archetype of which things are imperfect copies.

Word family

  • idealess
  • ideamonger
  • subidea
  • fixed idea
  • idea man

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary groups idea with thought, notion, concept and conception, noting that idea has the widest range.[9] In British English, the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary notes a stress on the first syllable, /ˈaɪ.dɪə/, sometimes heard when a stressed syllable follows.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b 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 i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin