nation

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈneɪ.ʃən/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English nacioun,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French nacion (“birth, rank; descendants; country, homeland”),^[4][2] and directly borrowed from Latin nātiō (“birth, origin; breed, stock; race of people, tribe”) (accusative nātiōnem),^[4][2] literally “that which has been born”,^[4] from nātus, past participle of nāscī (“to be born”) (Old Latin gnāscī),^[4][3] from Proto-Indo-European *gene- (“to give birth, beget”).^[4] It is related to native, nature and innate.^[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A race of people, a large group of common descent and language: probably before 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder,^[2][6] about 1300 in Etymonline.^[4] The link between birth and country is the idea of a people sharing a common ancestry or culture.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In English the word has a broad sense, a people of the same ethnic family and language, and a narrower one, a political society.^[4] The political sense emerged by the 16th century, perhaps the late 14th, and has gradually predominated.^[4] In biblical use the nations were the heathen, the Gentiles, from before 1340.^[6] In medieval universities a nation was a body of students from one region, from about 1411.^[6] The older sense survives in the use of nation for the native peoples of North America, from the 1640s.^[4] National is from 1597,^[2] and nation-state from 1918.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1300 – a people of common descent.^[2][6]
• before 1340 – the nations, the Gentiles.^[6]
• c. 1411 – a university nation.^[6]
• 16th century – a political society.^[4]
• 1597 – national.^[2]
• 1640s – a native North American people.^[4]
• 1918 – nation-state.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A large group of people under one, usually independent, government; a country.
2. A people sharing customs, origins, history and often language; a nationality.
3. A federation or tribe, especially of Native American peoples: the Navajo Nation.
4. The government of a sovereign state.

Word family

• nationhood
• nationless
• cybernation
• internation
• national
• nation-state
• nationwide
• supernation

Related words

• antenatal
• innate
• nascent
• natal
• native
• nativism
• nativity
• natural
• naturalism
• nature
• naturism
• prenatal
• nationality
• naive
• renaissance
• kin

Usage notes

A separate dialect and US nation, “very, extremely; very great”, used in oaths, is a shortening of damnation, from the 1760s.^[6][7][3]

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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press