juxtaposition

Etymology

It is borrowed from French juxtaposition,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from Latin iuxtā (“beside, very near”) and position.^[2][3][6][7] The OED notes that the French word is recorded in 1690, in Hatzfeld and Darmesteter, later than the first English example,^[2] and Merriam-Webster takes the word as formed from the Latin adverb and the English noun position.^[8][9] Johnson (1755) gave its sources as French, and as the Latin adverb and positiō;^[10] Skeat and Weekley called it a coinage from the Latin adverb and position.^[11][12] According to Etymonline, the Latin adverb is a contraction of *iugista, the superlative of an adjective *iugos (“closely connected”), from Proto-Indo-European *yeug- (“to join”).^[3] Hoad and Ayto cross-refer it to joust.^[4][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of placing things side by side, or the state of being so placed: 1661, in Joseph Glanvill's The Vanity of Dogmatizing.^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED had 1665,^[14] Etymonline dates the word to the 1660s^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1655–65,^[6] while Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1654 as its first known use.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it as apposition, the state of being placed by each other, with a quotation on how the parts of solid bodies hold together.^[10] In crystallography of the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the contact between twinned crystals, as in juxtaposition twin, a sense the OED marks obsolete.^[2] The verb juxtapose followed in the 19th century,^[4][5] and the adjective juxtapositional in the mid-19th century.^[5] Black's Law Dictionary also has a patent-law sense, for which it refers to aggregation.^[15]

Timeline

• 1661 – the action of placing things close together or side by side; the condition of being so placed.^[2][3]
• 1883 – in crystallography, contact between twinned crystals (obsolete by 1917).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side or close together, often to contrast or compare them: the juxtaposition of old houses and glass towers.^{[16][17][8][2]}
2. The state of being placed side by side or close together.^{[16][17][9][2]}

Word family

• juxtapositional

Related words

• juxtapose
• position
• joust
• yoke

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
10. ^ 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.
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West
16. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
17. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster