notify

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English notifien, also notefie,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman notifier, also notefier, to make known,^[4][3][5] inherited from Latin nōtificō (“to make known”).^[4][3][6][7] The French verb is recorded from 1314,^[4] and the Anglo-Norman one from the early 14th century, already meaning to inform and to give official notice.^[8] Barnhart traces the Latin verb to a lost adjective *nōtificus (“making known”);^[5] it is formed from nōtus (“known”), the past participle of nōscō (“to get to know”), and -ficō, from faciō (“to make, do”).^[4][3][6][9] Etymonline traces the two parts to Proto-Indo-European *gno- (“to know”) and Proto-Indo-European *dhe- (“to set, put”).^[3] In post-classical Latin the verb also meant to define, explain or signify.^[4] The same Latin verb gave notificare, notificar and notificar.^[4] Barnhart thinks it also possible that Chaucer formed notify in English from notification, which he used about 1380 in his translation of Boethius.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Barnhart dates the sense "to take notice of, observe" to about 1385 and "to inform or indicate" to about 1390, both in Chaucer.^[5][10] The OED's first quotation is from Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale (c. 1390), for "to make known, proclaim",^[4] and Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century in the sense "to make known, to tell".^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb covered making something known, informing someone, specifying that something be done, signifying, and taking notice of something;^[2] Chaucer used it four times and Gower once.^[11] The sense "to indicate, denote" lasted until 1750, and "to take note of, observe" until the 19th century.^[4][12] The sense with a person as object, to inform someone or give them notice, is recorded from about 1450,^[4][3] and it became the main meaning in modern use.^[13][14] Johnson (1755) defined it only as "to declare; to make known; to publish".^[15] From 1882 it was used, chiefly in medicine, of reporting a case of a serious infectious disease to the authorities,^[4][14] and Walter Scott used it once (1830) for "to annotate".^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1385 – to take notice of, observe (obsolete by the 19th century).^[5][4]
• c. 1390 – to make known, announce; also to indicate, signify (obsolete).^[4][5]
• c. 1450 – to inform someone, give notice to.^[4][3]
• 1509 – intransitive, to give notice of something (obsolete).^[4]
• 1755 – Johnson: to declare, make known, publish.^[15]
• 1882 – to report a case of an infectious disease to the authorities.^[4]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To inform someone formally or officially of something: The bank notified its customers of the new fees.
2. (chiefly British) To make something known; to announce or report it.
3. To report a case of a notifiable disease to the public-health authorities.
4. (obsolete) To take notice of; to observe; also, to indicate or denote.

Word family

• notifier
• notifiable
• unnotified
• prenotify
• renotify

Related words

• notification
• notice
• notion
• know
• -fy

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.