notation

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin notātiō (“a marking; observation; etymological explanation”),^[2][3][4][5] from notō (“to note, mark”),^[2][3][6][7] from nota (“mark, note”).^[3][7] Etymonline and Barnhart see it also as a borrowing of Middle French notation.^[6][8] In Latin the word also meant shorthand,^[6][5] and in post-classical Latin musical notation, from the 15th century in British sources.^[2] The OED notes that Cicero used notātiō to translate Ancient Greek ἐτυμολογία (etumología), the source of etymology.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In rhetoric, describing a thing by its distinctive qualities: 1555, in Sherry's Treatise of the Figures of Grammar and Rhetorike.^[2] Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster begin with the sense "explanation of a word by its etymology", from 1570, in a text by Dee in Billingsley's translation of Euclid.^[6][8][4][2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin senses came into English one by one: the etymological explanation of a word (1570–1697),^[2][9] then a note or annotation (1587),^[2][6] and the act of noting something down (1646).^[2] Johnson (1755) still gave "meaning, signification" beside the recording of things by marks.^[10] The modern sense, a system of signs for numbers or quantities, appears first in Phillips's dictionary of 1706,^[2][8][6] and spread to music in 1776, in Burney,^[2] to dance in 1845,^[2] and to chemistry, logic, chess and other fields in the 19th century.^[2] The Shorter Oxford notes that the sense "a note, a record" is now chiefly American.^[9]

Timeline

• 1555 – in rhetoric, describing a thing by its qualities (obsolete).^[2]
• 1570 – the etymological explanation of a word (obsolete by 1697).^[2][8][4]
• 1587 – a note, an annotation.^[2]
• 1646 – the act of noting something.^[2]
• 1706 – a system of signs in mathematics.^[2][8][6]
• 1776 – musical notation.^[2]
• 1845 – dance notation.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A system of signs or symbols used to represent numbers, quantities, sounds or moves in a field such as mathematics, music or chess: Chess players record games in algebraic notation.^[11][4][2]
2. The act or method of representing something by such signs.^[4][11]
3. A brief written note or record; an annotation: The clerk added a notation to the file.^[4][11][9]
4. The act of noting something down.^[11][4][2]
5. (obsolete, 1570–1697) The explanation of a word from its etymology.^[2][4]

Word family

• notational
• labanotation
• scientific notation

Related words

• note
• notate
• annotation
• connotation
• denotation
• notary
• notice

References

1. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins