ordination

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ordinacioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman ordinatiun and ordination, and directly borrowed from Latin ōrdinātiō (“the action of ordering, arranging”).^{[5][4][6][7][2]} The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from about 1270 for a rule or directive, or a decree made by a guild or town.^[8][5] In Old French it meant the conferring of holy orders from about 1200.^[5] The Latin noun is formed from ōrdinātus, the past participle of ōrdinō (“to put in order, arrange, appoint”), the source of ordain,^{[5][4][9][10]} from ōrdō (“row, rank, series, arrangement”), the source of order.^[4][11] Post-classical Latin used it for the conferring of holy orders by the turn of the 3rd century, in Tertullian, and for an ordinance or decree from the mid 5th century.^[5] The OED compares Italian ordinazione and Spanish ordenación.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A divine decree: about 1400 according to Etymonline, before 1400 according to Barnhart, in the spelling ordynacyone.^[4][6] The OED's earliest record, before 1425 in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie, has the sense arrangement in orders or classes.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word meant both arrangement and a divine decree or dispensation, and was also used for the ordaining of an archbishop and the establishment of a rite.^[2][6] The sense of admitting someone to holy orders, which Etymonline calls the main surviving one, appears in English in the 15th century,^[5][4] while from 1650 the word was occasionally used of appointment to any office.^[5] In the 17th century it could also mean the purpose for which something was destined (1607 to 1829),^[5] and Johnson (1755) gave the senses "established order or tendency" and the investing of a man with priestly power.^[12] The general senses of arranging and of ordaining or decreeing are now rare.^[5] In 1954 ecologists took up the word for a statistical technique that arranges data from many sites as points in several dimensions, after German Ordnung.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – a divine decree.^[4][6]
• before 1425 – arrangement in orders or classes (obsolete by 1885).^[5][2]
• before 1425 – the ordaining of an archbishop.^[6][2]
• c. 1450 – the ordaining or decreeing of God or fate.^[5]
• before 1475 – the conferring of holy orders.^[5]
• c. 1499 – an ordinance or decree (obsolete by 1894).^[5]
• 1531 – the action of arranging, or an arrangement.^[5]
• 1650 – appointment to any office (obsolete).^[5]
• 1954 – a statistical technique in ecology.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or ceremony of conferring holy orders; admission to the Christian ministry: Her ordination took place in the cathedral last spring.^[13][3][5]
2. The state of being ordained.^[13][3]
3. The ordaining or decreeing of something, especially by God or fate.^[5][7][3]
4. Arrangement or ordering; disposition.^[3][13][5]
5. (statistics, ecology) A technique for ordering data from many sites or populations by arranging them as points in several dimensions.^[5]

Word family

• nonordination

Related words

• ordain
• order
• ordinance
• ordinate
• coordination

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University 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. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
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 c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins