physique

Etymology

It is borrowed from French physique (“that which is physical”), the noun use of the French adjective of the same spelling, meaning "physical",^[2][3][4][5] from Latin physicus (“natural, physical”),^[3][4][6] from Ancient Greek φυσικός (phusikós),^[3][4][7] from φύσις (phúsis, “nature”),^[3][4][6] from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to be, exist, grow”).^[3][6] In French the noun meant "that which is physical" from 1733 and "outward appearance" from 1763.^[2] The same Latin and Greek words are the source of physic, physical and physics.^[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Physical nature: the OED's first record is from Byron's journal, 13 December 1813, in a sense now obsolete and rare.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates its first sense, bodily makeup, to 1804.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The first English uses were close to the French: physical nature (1813) and, in a letter of Maria Edgeworth of 1821, physical surroundings considered for their appearance; both died out.^[2] The current sense, the form, size and development of a person's body, is recorded from 1826, in the letters of Countess Granville,^[2] and Barnhart and Etymonline date the word itself to 1826.^[4][3] Merriam-Webster also extends it to the physical form of a region, such as a mountain range.^[8]

Timeline

• 1804 – bodily makeup, in Merriam-Webster's dating.^[8]
• 1813 – physical nature (now obsolete), in Byron.^[2]
• 1821 – physical surroundings (now obsolete).^[2]
• 1826 – the form, size and development of a person's body.^[2][4][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The form, size and muscular development of a person's body; build: The swimmer had a lean, powerful physique.^[9][8][10]
2. The physical form or structure of something other than a body, such as a region.^[8]

Related words

• physic
• physical
• physics
• physician

References

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