meaning

Etymology

It is formed from English mean + -ing,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} first as meninge and mening.^[3][5] The OED compares Middle Dutch mēninge, Middle Low German mēninge, Old High German meinunga, Middle High German meinunge, German Meinung and Dutch mening.^[2] Mean itself is from Old English mǣnan (“to intend; to convey a sense”),^[3][6] from Proto-West Germanic *menjojanan, from Proto-Indo-European *meino- (“opinion, intent”).^[3] The adjective is formed from the present participle.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Sense, what is intended to be expressed, about 1300 in Etymonline, which also has "act of remembering" for the same form.^[3] Dictionary.com dates the noun to 1250–1300.^[6] The OED's first quotation is about 1384, from the Wycliffite Bible, for what a symbol or vision indicates.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Shorter Oxford records "remembrance, a commemoration" from Middle English to the early 16th century, a sense now lost.^[4][3] By the late 14th century the noun covered the sense of a word or text (before 1387, in Trevisa),^[2] what a speaker intends (about 1395, in Chaucer's Squire's Tale) and a person's motive (before 1393, in Gower).^[2] Chaucer and Gower use it only a few times.^[7] "Significance, import" comes later: from 1600 in the OED,^[2] from the 1680s in Etymonline.^[3] The question "what is the meaning of this?", demanding a motive or justification, is recorded from 1605.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) gave "purpose; intention" first, and "the sense; the thing understood" third.^[8] The sense of something that gives life purpose or value, of a metaphysical or spiritual kind, is first recorded in 1834, in Carlyle's Sartor Resartus.^[2] Within the meaning of the act, originally a legal phrase, is recorded from 1766.^[2] The adjective is older in compounds of the type well-meaning (1498)^[2][4] than in the sense "expressive, suggestive" (1726, in Thomson's Winter).^[2] In dialect the noun has meant "consequence" in Lincolnshire, and "a hint, a slight symptom" in Lancashire and East Anglia.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – sense, what is intended to be expressed; also the act of remembering (now obsolete).^[3]
• c. 1384 – what a symbol, dream or vision indicates.^[2]
• before 1387 – the sense of a word or text.^[2]
• before 1393 – a person's motive or intention.^[2]
• c. 1395 – what a speaker intends to express.^[2]
• 1498 – adjective, having an intention, chiefly with an adverb.^[2]
• 1600 – significance, import.^[2]
• 1605 – of an action, its cause or justification.^[2]
• 1726 – adjective, expressive, suggestive.^[2]
• 1766 – within the meaning of the act, in law.^[2]
• 1834 – the purpose of existence or of a person's life.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. What a word, sentence, sign or symbol expresses or stands for; sense: The dictionary gives three meanings of the verb.^[5][2][4]
2. What a person intends to convey: I didn't catch her meaning.^[5][2]
3. Significance or importance: The ceremony has lost its meaning for them.^[5][2][4]
4. A sense of purpose or value, especially in life.^[2][4]
5. Of an action, its motive or justification, usually in a demanding question.^[2][4]
6. (archaic) An intention or purpose.^[2][4]
7. (obsolete, Middle English–early 16th century) Remembrance, a commemoration.^[4][3]

Adjective

1. Conveying something unspoken; expressive: a meaning glance across the table.^[5][2][4]
2. Having a specified intention, chiefly in compounds such as well-meaning.^[5][2][4]

Word family

• meaningly
• meaningness
• submeaning
• undermeaning
• meaningful
• meaningless
• unmeaning

Related words

• mean

Usage notes

Dictionary.com treats meaning as the general word.^[6] In its account sense singles out one particular meaning of a word or phrase, significance what is implied rather than stated, and purport the gist of a formal or complicated text.^[6] The OED also has an obsolete noun meaning for moaning or lamentation (before 1200–1572), which comes from its verb mean "to lament", and an astronomical meaning from 1884, the motion of the sun in mean longitude.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b 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 s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 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 i j k l 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)