lessen

Etymology

It is formed from English less + -en.^[2][3][4][5] The OED treats it as a new formation of about 1400 that replaced an earlier verb less,^[2][4] and Dictionary.com likewise has late Middle English lessenen, also lasnen, replacing Middle English lessen;^[6] the Middle English Dictionary files the forms lessen, lassen and lissen under one verb from the adjective lesse.^[7] The adjective less is from Old English lǣssa (“less, smaller”).^[8][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To become less in number, size or strength; to diminish: the MED quotes lesseð from the life of St Katherine (about 1225).^[7] Etymonline dates the intransitive sense about 1300 and Merriam-Webster to the 13th century,^[3][5] while the revised OED has its first record about 1400, in Cleanness.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The transitive sense, to make less, followed about 1400;^[3] the OED's first record is in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon (about 1410).^[2] Gower used the verb, as lasseth and lassed, 14 times.^[9] From the 16th century it was also used of people and their deeds: to make someone less in others' esteem, to belittle or excuse a fault (1553 to 1877), and to lower someone's dignity (from 1579, now only reflexive).^[2] Mapping Metaphor records the step from decrease in quantity to contempt in the later 16th century.^[10] From 1604 to 1912 it was used of something that seems to shrink with distance, first of a bird in flight.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave the senses "to diminish in bulk" and "to diminish in degree of any quality".^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – lesseð, grows less, in the life of St Katherine.^[7]
• c. 1300 – to become less.^[3]
• c. 1400 – to become less, in Cleanness.^[2]
• c. 1410 – to make less, to diminish.^[2]
• 1553 – to make less in estimation; to belittle (obsolete by 1877).^[2]
• 1579 – to lower the dignity of.^[2]
• 1604 – to seem smaller with distance (obsolete by 1912).^[2]
• 1874 – lessen, unless, in American dialect.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To become less; to decrease or diminish: The pain lessened after an hour.^[5][12][2]
2. To make less in size, amount or degree; to reduce: Better drainage lessened the danger of floods.^{[5][12][13][2]}
3. To lower in status or dignity; to demean.^[14][2]
4. (archaic) To make little of; to belittle.^[14][13][12]

Related words

• less
• least
• unless
• lesson

Usage notes

Lessen and lesson sound alike and are easily confused.^[6] A separate word lessen, meaning "unless", is recorded in American dialect from 1874, in the Atlantic Monthly;^[2] it probably comes from less with a reduced form of than or and.^[2][4][15]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c 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)
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
10. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press