nonentity

Etymology

It is formed from English non- + entity.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English instead derive it from Medieval Latin nonentitas (“non-existence”),^[9][10] made up of non (“not”) and the noun meaning entity,^[9] while the OED, which revised this entry in 2003, only compares that Latin form, recorded in a British source of the 13th century, with the sense of non-existence.^[2] The base noun goes back to Late Latin entitas, from ens (“a thing”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A thing with no real existence, or one only imagined: 1604, in Edmondes's Observations on Caesar's Commentaries.^[2][11] Etymonline has about 1600,^[4] Dictionary.com 1590–1600,^[5] and Hoad and the Shorter Oxford the 16th century.^[6][9]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant something that does not exist (1604), a use now chiefly philosophical, and then non-existence itself (1643, in Digby).^[2] From 1654 it could also mean the condition of being of no significance,^[2] and the sense now usual, a person or thing of no importance, is first recorded in 1710, in Steele's Tatler.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) still listed only non-existence and a thing not existing.^[12] Regional uses went their own way: in Ayrshire it was a sinecure (Galt, 1822), in Renfrewshire to be at a nonentity meant to be at a deadlock, and in east Yorkshire it was an eccentric person.^[13]

Timeline

• 1604 – a thing that does not exist.^[2][11]
• 1643 – non-existence.^[2]
• 1654 – the condition of being of no significance.^[2]
• 1656 – non-existent matter.^[2]
• 1710 – a person or thing of no importance.^[2][4]
• 1822 – in Ayrshire, a sinecure.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person or thing of no importance or interest: Beside his famous brother, the young composer passed for a nonentity.^{[14][15][11][2][9]}
2. A thing with no real existence, or one found only in the mind; a figment.^{[14][15][11][2]}
3. The state of not existing; nonexistence.^{[14][15][11][2]}
4. The condition of being of no significance; insignificance.^[2]

Related words

• entity
• non-

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b 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)
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt