poesy

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English poesie, also poysye and poisie,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French poesie,^{[5][2][6][7][4]} which the revised OED and Merriam-Webster Unabridged give as Middle French poesie (modern poésie).^[8][3] The French word is from Latin poēsis (“poetry, a poem”),^[8][5][2][6] perhaps through Vulgar Latin *poesia, the source of Italian poesia, Spanish poesía and Portuguese poesia.^[6][8] The Latin noun is from Ancient Greek ποίησις (poíēsis, “a making; composition, poetry”),^[9][5][6][2] from ποιέω (poiéō, “to make, create, compose”).^[9][5][10] The American Heritage Dictionary traces the Greek verb to Proto-Indo-European *kʷei- (“to pile up, build, make”).^[5][11] The same Greek verb gave poet and poem, and posy is a contracted form of poesy.^[9][6][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Poetry: about 1378, spelled poysye, in a version of Piers Plowman, and as poesye about 1385.^[2][4] The revised OED's first record is Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon (before 1387), for a poem or any inventive composition.^[8] Chaucer used the word once and Gower eight times.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word covered both a single poem and poetry in general, and in early use any imaginative composition.^[8][6] The sense "the art of poetic composition, skill in making poems" is dated by Etymonline to the late 15th century,^[6] and Ben Jonson set it apart from the poem itself: "Poesy is his skill or craft of making".^[6][13] From about 1450 a poesy was also a short motto, often rhymed and later usually engraved inside a ring; from 1565 it was also a bunch of flowers; both senses passed to the contracted form posy.^[8][6][10] Johnson (1755) gave "the art of writing poems" as the first sense.^[13] The word is now archaic or used with disdain, for verse thought artificial or sentimental,^[8][3] and Keats made a short-lived verb of it in 1820.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1378 – poysye, poetry.^[2][4]
• before 1387 – a poem; also an imaginative composition.^[8]
• c. 1390 – poetic work, verse, poems in general.^[8]
• c. 1450 – a motto or short inscription, later especially one in a ring.^[8]
• before 1500 – poetic expression (obsolete by 1592).^[8]
• late 15th century – the art of poetic composition.^[6]
• 1565 – a bunch of flowers, a nosegay.^[8]
• 1820 – verb, to produce poetry, in Keats.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic) poetry; poems as a body of work: the poesy of the Elizabethans.^[14][3][8]
2. The art or skill of writing poems.^[14][3]
3. Poetic writing thought of as artificial or sentimental.^[3][8]
4. Poetic inspiration.^[3][15]
5. (archaic) A poem or verse, especially a motto in verse, as engraved in a ring.^[14][8]
6. (rare) A bunch of flowers; a posy.^[8][10]

Word family

• posy

Related words

• poet
• poem
• poetry

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
13. ^ 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.
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin