Etymologically
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nation

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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
  • 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