piety

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English piete,^[2][3][4] partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman pieté and Middle French piété,^[5] and partly borrowed from Latin pietās (“dutifulness, piety”),^[5][6][7] from pius (“dutiful, kind, devout”) with the suffix -tās.^[5][6][8] In Old French the word is recorded as pieted, pity, from the late 10th century, and as godliness in Anglo-Norman from the mid 13th century.^[5] In Latin pietās meant dutiful conduct, a sense of duty, religiousness and loyalty, and in Late Latin also kindness and pity.^[6][5] The OED compares pietà, piedad and piedade.^[5] It is a doublet of pity, from which it was not fully distinguished until the late 16th century.^{[9][6][7][10]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Mercy, compassion, pity: before 1350, in the Harley Lyrics.^[5][2] Barnhart dates the word to about 1325,^[8] and a surname Piete is recorded in 1195.^[5][8][6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English piete meant much the same as pity, as in Chaucer's Troilus;^[2][10] the sense "pity" lasted to the early 17th century and survives only in the phrase Our Lady Piety.^[5][11] The religious sense, reverence for God and devotion to religious duties, is recorded from before 1500,^[5] about 1500 in Merriam-Webster^[12] and the early 16th century in the Oxford Dictionary of English;^[13] Barnhart dates it to 1604, in Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall.^[8] From 1534 the word also meant the dutiful affection owed to parents and relatives, the sense of Latin pietās.^[5][6] Since 1590 it has also meant a pious act or saying, later also a sanctimonious commonplace.^[5][14] Johnson (1755) defined it first as the discharge of duty to God.^[15]

Timeline

• 1195 – the surname Piete.^[5][8]
• before 1350 – mercy, compassion, pity.^[5][2]
• before 1500 – reverence for God, devoutness.^[5]
• 1534 – dutiful loyalty to parents and relatives.^[5]
• 1590 – a pious act or saying.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Reverence for God and devotion to religious duties; devoutness.^[12][14][5]
2. Dutiful loyalty and respect, especially towards parents and family, as in filial piety.^[12][14][5]
3. A pious act or remark; also, a sanctimonious commonplace.^[14][5]
4. (obsolete) Pity, mercy.^[5][11]

Word family

• pietism
• unpiety

Related words

• pious
• pity
• piteous
• pittance
• pietist

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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 t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.