precipitation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English precipitacioun,^[2] partly borrowed from Middle French précipitation and partly directly from Latin praecipitātiō (“headlong descent or fall; haste”).^[3][2][4][5] In classical Latin the noun meant a headlong fall, and in post-classical Latin also ruin or destruction;^[3] the Middle French word is recorded from before 1365, first for a prolapse of the womb, and later for hurrying someone (1471) and excessive haste (1486).^[3] In Anglo-Norman, precipitaciun is found from the second quarter of the 13th century for a prolapse of the womb and for rashness.^[6] The Latin noun was formed from praecipitātus, the past participle of praecipitō (“to throw or dive headlong; to be hasty”),^[2][7][8] from praeceps (“headlong, steep”), formed from prae- (“before, forth”) and caput (“head”),^[2][7] from Proto-Indo-European *kaput- (“head”).^[2][7] It is related to precipitate and precipice.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of casting down or falling from a height: before 1475, in the Revelations of St Birgitta,^[3][4] where Etymonline notes it was used of the casting down of the evil angels from heaven.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Three groups of meaning grew from the Latin idea of a headlong fall.^[3] The first kept the physical sense: a throwing down or fall from a height,^[3][4] which Shakespeare used in Coriolanus of the threat of being thrown from the Tarpeian rock,^[4][9] and in medicine, from 1576 until 1834, a prolapse of the womb.^[3][10] The second, from about 1500, took up the Latin sense of haste: sudden, hurried action (1502), then rashness (1572),^[3][2][10] the bringing about of something suddenly (1621) and a headlong rush (1628, now obsolete).^[3][4] The third was technical.^[3] Alchemists and chemists used it for the separation of a solid from a solution, first in Thomas Norton's Ordinal of Alchemy (copied before 1550),^[3][2] and, from 1605, for the precipitated substance itself.^[3][10] The condensation of moisture from the air and its fall to the ground as rain, snow or dew is recorded from the 1670s according to Etymonline,^[2] and the Shorter Oxford places that use in the early 17th century, together with the precipitated substance.^[4] In spiritualism, from 1891, the word was used for the materialization of a spirit,^[10][11] and, from 1908, for the removal of dust from a gas, as by electrostatic precipitation.^[10] Johnson (1755) gave only the older senses: throwing headlong, violent motion downward, and haste.^[9]

Timeline

• before 1475 – a casting down or falling from a height.^[3][2]
• 1502 – sudden and hurried action, haste.^[3][5]
• before 1550 – in alchemy, the separation of a solid from a solution (Norton's Ordinal of Alchemy, composed about 1477).^[3]
• 1572 – rashness, impetuosity.^[3][10]
• 1576 – a prolapse of the womb (obsolete by 1834).^[3][10]
• 1605 – a precipitated substance, a precipitate.^[3][10]
• 1621 – the bringing about of something suddenly.^[3]
• 1670s – rain, snow, dew and other moisture deposited from the atmosphere.^[2]
• 1891 – in spiritualism, materialization.^[10]
• 1908 – the removal of dust or particles from a gas.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (meteorology) Water that falls from the atmosphere to the ground as rain, snow, sleet or hail, or condenses on it as dew: Heavy precipitation is expected over the hills tonight.^[7][11][4]
2. The amount of such water that falls on an area in a given period: The valley gets less than 300 millimetres of precipitation a year.^[7][11]
3. (chemistry) The formation and separation of a solid precipitate from a solution.^[11][5][3]
4. Abrupt or rash haste: They acted with some precipitation.^[7][11][5]
5. A sudden hastening or bringing about of something.^[7][3]
6. The act of throwing down or of falling headlong, or the state of being precipitated.^[11][3][4]
7. (spiritualism) Materialization, the appearance of a spirit in bodily form.^[11][10]

Word family

• nonprecipitation
• immunoprecipitation
• acid precipitation

Related words

• precipitate
• precipice
• precipitous
• precipitant

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 f g h i j k Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins