Etymologically
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lessen

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Pronunciation

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]

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