Etymologically
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location

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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
  • 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