location

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ləʊˈkeɪ.ʃən/, US /loʊˈkeɪ.ʃən/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin locātiō (“a placing; a letting for hire”) (accusative locātiōnem),^[2][3][4] a noun of action from locāre (“to place, put; to lease”),^[2][3] from locus (“a place”),^[2] the source of locus and locate.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In civil and Scots law, the letting of something for hire: 1592.^[5] The position of something, the fact of being in a particular place, is from 1597^[5][3] (the 1590s in Etymonline).^[2]

Semantic evolution

The act of placing or settling is from the 1620s.^[2][5] Of land, the marking out of a tract by survey is from 1718, hence a tract of land marked out (1792), in the US especially a mining claim.^[2][5] In Australia a location was a farm or station (1828).^[5] In South Africa the word was used of the land granted to British settlers in 1820,^[6] and of the quarters or areas set apart for Black South Africans.^[5] The film sense, a place away from the studio where scenes are shot, as in on location, is from 1914.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1592 – letting for hire (law).^[5]
• 1597 – a position, place.^[5][3]
• 1620s – the act of placing.^[2]
• 1718 – the surveying of land.^[2][5]
• 1792 – a tract of land marked out.^[2][5]
• 1914 – a film location.^[2][5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A place where something is or could be; a site or position.
2. The act of finding or placing something.
3. A place away from a studio where a film is shot: on location.
4. A tract of land surveyed and marked off.
5. (South Africa, historical) An area set apart for Black South Africans.

Word family

• locational
• locationally
• bilocation
• echolocation
• interlocation
• multilocation
• radiolocation
• translocation

Related words

• local
• locale
• localize
• locate
• locative
• locator
• locus
• locomotive
• allocate
• dislocate
• lieu

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ 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 e f g h i j k l Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles, Dictionary Unit for South African English, https://dsae.co.za