oblong

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English oblonge,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin oblongus (“longer than broad, elongated; somewhat long”),^[5][6][7][8] formed from ob- and longus (“long”).^[5][9][6][8] The force of the prefix is unclear, since Latin has no comparable word:^[5] Barnhart and Etymonline take it as "to, toward" used as an intensive,^[7][6] the American Heritage Dictionary calls its sense uncertain,^[9] and Merriam-Webster glosses it "toward, over, completely".^[2] Klein notes that the Latin word first meant "longish, rather long" and only later "oblong".^[3] The OED compares Anglo-Norman oblonge, probably of the 14th century, Middle French oblong, recorded from 1520, and Italian oblungo.^[5] The second element, longus, is from Proto-Indo-European *del- (“long”), according to the American Heritage Dictionary.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Elongated, departing from an exact square or circle, especially rectangular with unequal sides: probably before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie.^[5][7] Etymonline dates it to the early 15th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The adjective was soon applied in botany to leaves with long straight sides and blunt ends, before 1500.^[5] The noun, an oblong figure, is recorded from 1590, in Thomas Hood's translation of Ramus's geometry;^[5][10] Barnhart dates it before 1608 and Etymonline to about 1600.^[7][6] Johnson (1755) defined the adjective as "longer than broad" and equated it with a rectangle whose sides are unequal.^[11] A figurative use, "drawn out, too long", appears in 1643 but did not last.^[5][10] Printers took the word in 1888 for a page or picture wider than it is high, in landscape rather than portrait format;^[5] the French adjective had been used of paper and books since 1762.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – elongated; rectangular with unequal sides.^[5][7]
• before 1500 – in botany, of a leaf.^[5]
• 1590 – noun, an oblong figure, especially a rectangle.^[5][10]
• 1643 – figuratively, drawn out (obsolete).^[5]
• 1888 – of paper, a page or a picture, wider than high.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Longer than it is wide; departing from a square or circle by being stretched, especially rectangular with unequal adjacent sides: an oblong dining table.^[12][2][5]
2. Of a sheet of paper, a page or a picture: wider than it is high; in landscape format.^[2][5]
3. (botany) Of a leaf: roughly rectangular, with long straight sides and blunt ends.^[5][13]

Noun

1. An oblong figure or object: She cut the dough into oblongs.^[12][2][5]

Word family

• oblongish
• oblongly
• oblongness

Related words

• long
• elongate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam