legation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English legacioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman legaciun, also legatiun and legation,^[5][6][7] and directly borrowed from Latin lēgātiō (“sending of a deputation, office of an ambassador”),^[5][6][3][8] formed from lēgātus, the past participle of lēgō (“to send with a commission, depute”), and the suffix -iō.^[5][4][2] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded in the first half of the 12th century, as lecaciun.^[5] The OED compares Spanish legación and Italian legazione.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The mission of a deputy or envoy: before 1425, in the Northern Pauline Epistles, "For crist þerfore we vse legacyoun", rendering the Latin legatione fungimur.^[3][5] The text itself may go back to before 1400,^[3][5] which agrees with Etymonline's date of about 1400;^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has the 14th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The Oxford Dictionary of English notes that the word first denoted the sending of a papal legate as well as the mission itself.^[8] From the mission it passed to the people who carry it out: a body of envoys, in the OED from 1509 and in Etymonline from about 1600, though French had that use by the late 12th century.^[5][6] It now means especially a mission headed by a minister ranking below an ambassador,^[5][4][9] and it was transferred to the building, in the OED from 1795, compare a French use of 1791, and in Etymonline from 1832.^[5][6] Johnson (1755) gives only "deputation; commission; embassy".^[10] From 1710 the word also named the provinces of the Papal States governed by a legate, after Italian legazione.^[5] A separate strand comes out of the verb's sense of bequeathing: "a gift by will", recorded from 1503, matching Latin use in British sources from the 14th century and French at the end of the 15th.^[5] Carlyle used it as a verb in 1864,^[5] and in Renfrewshire, in Neilson's Poems (1877), it meant a legal formality.^[11]

Timeline

• before 1425 – the mission of a deputy or envoy.^[5][3]
• 1503 – a gift by will, a legacy.^[5]
• 1509 – a body of envoys.^[5]
• 1523 – the sending of a deputy or legate, in Lord Berners's translation of Froissart.^[5]
• 1524 – the office of a legate.^[5]
• 1710 – a province of the Papal States.^[5]
• 1795 – the official residence of an envoy.^[5] Etymonline dates this sense to 1832.^[6]
• 1864 – verb, to go on a legation, in Carlyle.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A diplomatic mission in a foreign country headed by a minister ranking below an ambassador.^[9][4][5]
2. The official residence and offices of such a minister.^[9][5]
3. The sending of a legate or envoy.^[9][4][5]
4. The business entrusted to an envoy; a mission.^[9][4][5]
5. The rank or office of a legate.^[9][5]
6. (historical) A province of the Papal States governed by a legate.^[5]
7. (rare) A gift by will; a legacy.^[5]

Word family

• legationary

Related words

• legate
• legacy
• delegate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)