Etymologically
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injunction

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Pronunciation

  • /ɪnˈd͡ʒʌŋk.ʃən/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English injunccion,[2][3] borrowed from Late Latin iniūnctiō (“a command”),[4][2][3][5][6][7] a noun of action from iniūnctus, the past participle of iniungō (“to impose, inflict; to attach to”),[4][2][7] from in- (“in, on”) and iungō (“to join”),[4][2] from a nasalized form of Proto-Indo-European *yeug- (“to join”).[4] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster also see the influence of Middle French injonction,[3][8] which the OED compares, recorded in French from 1348;[5] the Anglo-Norman injonction, an order or command, is recorded from 1338–39.[9] It belongs with enjoin, which came through French from the same Latin verb.[7][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

An authoritative order or command: Barnhart dates the word to about 1425 and Etymonline to the early 15th century,[3][4] while the OED's first quotation, for the act of enjoining or an emphatic admonition, is from 1526, in William Bonde's Pylgrimage of Perfection.[5][12]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense, a court order restraining someone from doing or continuing something that threatens another's rights, is recorded from an Act of Henry VIII of 1533–4;[5][12] later law also uses it for an order to do a particular act.[2][8] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "command; order; precept".[13] For a time the word also kept the literal sense of the Latin verb, a joining together or union, from the late 15th to the mid-17th century,[6] recorded by the OED only in Milton (1643).[5][12]

Timeline

  • c. 1425 – injunccion, a command.[3]
  • 1520–30 – the period Dictionary.com gives.[14]
  • 1526 – the act of enjoining; an authoritative order.[5][12]
  • 1533–4 – law, a court order restraining an action.[5][12]
  • 1643 – conjunction, union (obsolete), in Milton.[5][12]
  • 1755 – Johnson defines it as command, order, precept.[13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An authoritative order, warning or instruction: She left with her father's injunction to write every week.[2][15][8][5]
  2. (law) A court order requiring a party to do, or more often to refrain from doing, a particular act: The residents won an injunction against the noisy quarry.[2][15][8][5]
  3. The act of enjoining.[15][8]
  4. (obsolete) Conjunction, union.[5][6]

Word family

  • injunctive
  • injunctively

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ 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.
  14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins