Etymologically
Log in

notation

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 15:27. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • US: /noʊˈteɪʃən/[1]

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
  • 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