manumit

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English manumitten,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin manūmittō (“to release, set at liberty, emancipate”),^{[5][2][3][6][7]} literally "to send from the hand".^[3][6] The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Klein add a step in French, manumitter,^[8][4][9] which the OED only compares, with its date of 1354, beside Law French manumettre, recorded from 1338.^[5] The Latin verb comes from a phrase joining manū, the ablative of manus (“hand; the power of a father or master”), with mittō (“to let go, release, send”), earlier with ēmittō (“to send out”).^{[5][7][10][3][4]} Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take the noun back to Proto-Indo-European *man- (“hand”).^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To release a person from slavery or bondage: about 1455, in the Regiam Majestatem, in the OED.^[5] The Middle English Dictionary has it in a text probably composed about 1425, Higden's chronicle in a manuscript of before 1475, of a king freed at the high altar, and in the Speculum Sacerdotale, of the slaves of the Jews.^[2] Etymonline dates it to the early 15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The main sense has remained the freeing of a slave or bondman,^[4][5] and the Shorter Oxford now calls the word chiefly historical.^[7] A wider use for releasing someone from anything that binds appears from 1594, in Nashe,^[5] and Johnson (1755), who defined it as to release from slavery, quoted a figurative example about the "servile drudgeries to vice".^[11] A Scottish use for conferring a degree appears in a history of the University of Edinburgh from before 1662.^[5] From the 16th to the 19th century the variant forms manumiss and manumise were sometimes used.^[3] A noun manumit, "a freed bondman", arose only from a misprint for manumitted in 1637.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1455 – to release from slavery or bondage.^[5] The Middle English Dictionary has it from a manuscript of before 1475, of a text composed about 1425.^[2]
• 1594 – in extended use, to set free, in Nashe.^[5]
• before 1662 – Scottish, to confer a degree upon (now obsolete).^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (chiefly historical) To free a person from slavery or bondage; to emancipate: The planter's will manumitted forty of his slaves.^{[7][8][4][12][5]}
2. To set free; to liberate in general.^[4][5]

Word family

• manumission
• manumitter

Related words

• mission
• manual
• emit
• emancipate
• manciple

References

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