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method

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈmeθ.əd/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin methodus (“way of teaching or proceeding”),[2][3] perhaps through French méthode,[4][5] from Ancient Greek μέθοδος (méthodos, “pursuit of knowledge, inquiry; originally a following after”),[2][3] from μετά (metá, “after, in pursuit of”) and ὁδός (hodós, “way, road, journey”),[2][3] a word of uncertain origin.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A prescribed medical treatment for a disease: probably before 1425, in a translation of Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie,[3] the early 15th century in Etymonline[2] and 1541 in the OED.[6]

Semantic evolution

The medical sense is obsolete.[6] The wider sense, any special way of doing things, is first recorded in 1586,[3][6] the 1580s in Etymonline.[2] Orderliness, regularity, as in method in his madness, is from the 1610s,[2] and a complete set of rules for reaching an end from the 1680s.[2] Methodist meant one who follows a method in 1593,[3] and was applied to the religious society founded at Oxford in 1729 by John and Charles Wesley,[3][7] probably from their following a set method of Bible study.[7] In acting, the Method, associated with Stanislavsky, is from 1923.[2][6]

Timeline

  • before 1425 – a medical treatment.[3]
  • 1586 – a way of doing something.[3][6]
  • 1593 – methodist, one following a method.[3]
  • 1610s – orderliness.[2]
  • 1680s – a system of rules.[2]
  • 1729 – the Methodists at Oxford.[3]
  • 1923 – the Method in acting.[2][6]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A way of doing something, especially a regular and systematic one.
  2. Orderly arrangement; planning: there is method in his madness.
  3. The techniques of a particular field of knowledge.
  4. (acting) A technique in which actors identify closely with their characters.

Word family

  • methodless

Usage notes

Method suggests a detailed, logically ordered plan, system an orderly method with many parts, routine a habitual procedure, and manner, mode, fashion and way are more general.[8]

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 f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin