litigate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin lītigō (“to dispute, carry on a lawsuit”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} through its past participle lītigātus,^[3][4][8][9] perhaps with the influence of Middle French litigier.^[4] The Latin verb is formed from līs (“lawsuit, dispute, strife”), stem līt-,^[2][7][9] and agō (“to drive, conduct”),^[7][3][5][9] after the phrase lītem agere (“to carry on a suit”),^[3][5] from Proto-Indo-European *ag- (“to drive, draw out or forth, move”).^[3] Klein compares the same formation in jūrigāre (“to quarrel, scold”).^[5] Barnhart instead posits a lost adjective *litigus, carrying on a lawsuit.^[4] The noun goes back to Old Latin stlīs.^[4][5][9] Etymonline and Barnhart call its origin uncertain,^[3][4] but Merriam-Webster Unabridged suggests a link with Ancient Greek στέλλω (stéllō, “to set up”),^[9] and Klein derives it from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to place”).^[5] Barnhart argues that litigation, recorded earlier, was probably not the base of the verb, since its legal sense is later than the verb's first record.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To carry on a suit at law, or more generally to dispute: 1606, in S. Daniel's Queenes Arcadia.^[2] This is earlier than the 1615 of Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged;^[4][9] Etymonline gives the 1610s and Dictionary.com 1605–15.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

The verb was first intransitive, of going to law, and could also mean simply to dispute; the Shorter Oxford calls that general use former.^[2][10] A general transitive use, to contest a point, appears in 1740, in Colley Cibber's Apology,^[2] and the legal transitive sense, to make something the subject of a lawsuit, in 1741.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) already separated the two constructions: to contest in law, and to manage a suit.^[11] The transitive legal use now stands beside the intransitive in the dictionaries, while Dictionary.com labels the sense of disputing a point archaic.^[8][9]

Timeline

• 1606 – to be a party to a lawsuit, to go to law; also to dispute.^[2]
• 1740 – to dispute or contest a point.^[2]
• 1741 – to make the subject of a lawsuit, to contest at law.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To carry on a lawsuit; to go to law or take part in legal proceedings: The tenants decided to litigate rather than move out.^[9][12][2]
2. To bring a claim or dispute before a court, or to contest it there: The firm has litigated dozens of patent claims.^{[12][2][7][8]}
3. (archaic) To dispute a point or assertion.^[8][2]

Word family

• litigable
• litigation
• litigator
• litigative
• relitigate
• unlitigated

Related words

• litigant
• litigious
• agent
• objurgate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins