prehensile

Etymology

It is borrowed from French préhensile (“adapted for grasping”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a word of Buffon's,^[7][3][8] recorded in 1758,^[2] formed with the French suffix -ile on Latin prehēnsus,^[2][6][7] the past participle of prehendō (“to grasp, seize”).^[5][4][3][9] The Latin verb is from prae- (“before”) and -hendere,^[3][6][10] from Proto-Indo-European *ghend- (“to seize, take”),^[3][5][11] and is cognate with Ancient Greek χανδάνειν (khandánein, “to hold”) and with get.^{[8][4][6][12]} Barnhart relates -hendere to hedera (“ivy”), in the sense of clinging, an idea that Etymonline quotes de Vaan as calling just a guess.^[4][3] The same Latin verb is behind apprehend, comprehend, prison and reprehensible,^[13] and, in a contracted form, prey and predatory.^[13][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Capable of grasping or holding, of a tail or limb: 1771, in Pennant's Synopsis of Quadrupeds.^[2][3][6] Barnhart and Dictionary.com date it to 1781–85.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

The word arose as a term of zoology, for the tail or limb of an animal that can wrap around and hold a support.^[2][15][6] The noun prehensility followed in the mid 19th century.^[16] In the 20th century it took on two figurative senses from the idea of grasping: having a strong capacity for understanding or retaining things, from 1921, and greedy or avaricious, from 1927.^[2][6][17]

Timeline

• 1771 – capable of grasping or holding.^[2][3][6]
• 1921 – having an excellent capacity for understanding or retaining things.^[2]
• 1927 – grasping, avaricious.^[2][17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Adapted for seizing or holding, especially by wrapping around something: an opossum's prehensile tail.^{[15][6][5][2]}
2. Having a keen intellect or strong memory.^[5][2][6]
3. Greedy; avaricious.^[6][2]

Word family

• prehensility
• nonprehensile
• subprehensile

Related words

• apprehend
• comprehend
• prison
• prey
• predatory
• reprehensible
• get
• prensile
• prehension

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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 k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)