pendulous

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pendulus (“hanging down, suspended; wavering”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} with the suffix -ous.^[2][3][7] The Latin adjective is formed from pendeō (“to hang”) and the suffix -ulus,^[2][3][8] from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pen- (“to draw, stretch, spin”).^[3][5] Compare Italian pendulo (14th century) and Medieval Latin pendulosus (c. 1150).^[2] It is related to pendant, pendulum and pend.^[4][8][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Hanging or floating in the air: 1608, in Shakespeare's King Lear: "All the plagues that in the pendulous air hang fated o'er men's faults".^[2][9] Barnhart dates the word to about 1605, in the sense "overhanging".^[4]

Semantic evolution

Shakespeare's sense, suspended in the air or in space, lasted until the 1830s.^[2] The modern sense, hanging down or drooping, is recorded from 1656,^[2][4] and became frequent in botany and zoology, of ovules, flowers and birds' nests.^[2][10] From 1662 the word also meant overhanging or poised overhead.^[2][11] Figurative uses followed the Latin: "wavering, undecided" (1624–1850) and "dependent on something" (1655–92).^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as hanging, not supported below.^[9] From 1706 it could describe a swinging movement like a pendulum's;^[2][6] from 1782 it also described a part of the body that droops heavily or sags.^[2]

Timeline

• 1608 – hanging or floating in the air (obsolete by 1831).^[2]
• 1624 – wavering, undecided (obsolete by 1850).^[2]
• 1655 – dependent or conditional on something (obsolete by 1692).^[2]
• 1656 – hanging down, drooping.^[2][4]
• 1662 – overhanging, suspended overhead.^[2]
• 1706 – swinging like a pendulum.^[2]
• 1782 – of a part of the body, sagging, flabby.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Hanging down loosely; drooping or sagging: pendulous branches heavy with fruit.^[12][10][2]
2. Hanging so as to swing freely from side to side.^[12][10][2]
3. (archaic) Poised or suspended without visible support.^[10][2]
4. (obsolete) Overhanging.^[10][11][2]
5. (obsolete, 1624–1850) Wavering, undecided.^[2][11]

Word family

• pendulously
• pendulousness

Related words

• pendulum
• pendant
• pendent
• pend
• depend
• suspend

References

1. ^ a b 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 x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ 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.
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins