invidious

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin invidiōsus (“full of envy, envious; exciting hatred, hateful”),^[2][3][4][5] from invidia (“ill will, envy, grudge”),^[2][3][5][6] a derivative of invideō (“to look at with malice, to envy”),^[7][8] formed from in- (“in, on”) and videō (“to see”).^[7][8] Envy comes from the same Latin noun, and envious is a doublet of this adjective that came through French.^[2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a charge or report, tending to excite ill feeling against someone: 1606, in Holland's translation of Suetonius.^[3][5][10] Etymonline dates the word to about 1600.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin adjective looked both ways, "envious" and "hateful",^[2][11] and so did the English word.^[3] Its use for what brings dislike on someone spread from accusations to things that excite envy against their owner (before 1661, in Fuller)^[3] and to actions or duties that make the person doing them unpopular (1701, in Rowe's Ambitious Step-mother).^[3] The sense "looking with an evil eye, envious, grudging" appears in 1668, in Wilkins,^[3] and is now rare,^[3][12] archaic in the American Heritage Dictionary^[4] and obsolete in Collins.^[13] In 1755 Johnson still listed "envious; malignant" first, while calling "likely to incur or to bring hatred" the more usual sense.^[14] The sense "offensively discriminating", used of a comparison or distinction, is recorded from 1709, in Sacheverell,^[3] and has become one of the word's two main uses.^[13][4] A passive use, "viewed with dislike, odious to someone", is found only in the early 18th century.^[3][12]

Timeline

• 1606 – of a charge or report, tending to excite ill feeling against someone.^[3][10][5]
• before 1661 – of a thing, likely to excite envy against its owner.^[3][12]
• 1668 – envious, grudging.^[3]
• 1701 – of an action or duty, bringing ill will on the person who does it.^[3]
• 1709 – of a comparison or distinction, offensively discriminating.^[3]
• 1710 – viewed with dislike, odious (obsolete by 1715).^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Tending to cause resentment, ill will or unpopularity: an invidious choice between two old friends.^[13][4][10]
2. Of a comparison or distinction: unfairly or offensively discriminating: Ranking the two authors would be an invidious exercise.^[13][4][3]
3. Harmful to reputation; defamatory.^[10]
4. (archaic) Full of envy; grudging or jealous.^{[4][13][3][10]}

Word family

• invidiously
• invidiousness
• noninvidious
• uninvidious

Related words

• envy
• envious
• vision
• insidious

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists invidious with insidious as a pair that can be confused.^[11]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.