Etymologically
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prevalence

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈpɹɛvələns/, /pɹɪˈveɪləns/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French prévalence (“superiority, excellence”),[2][3][4][5][6] recorded in 1504,[2] and in part from its Latin source, Latin praevalentia (“superior force”);[2] Merriam-Webster, the Shorter Oxford and Klein call the Latin word Late Latin, Etymonline Medieval Latin, and the OED finds it in a legal text of the 2nd century AD.[6][4][5][3][2] It is formed from praevalēns, the present participle of praevaleō (“to be more able, prevail”),[2][3][6] from prae- (“before”) and valeō (“to be strong”), from Proto-Indo-European *wal- (“to be strong”).[3] The OED compares Italian prevalenza and the English prevail and prevalent.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fact of prevailing; mastery or predominance: 1604, in T. Bilson's Survey of Christ's Sufferings;[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1590s.[3]

Semantic evolution

English already had several nouns for prevailing, among them prevailance and Shakespeare's prevailment, and prevalence first meant the same: winning out over others.[2][3] From 1612 to 1879 it also meant effective force or power, influence or efficacy.[2][4] The modern sense, the condition of being widespread or common, is recorded from 1682;[2][6] Etymonline dates it to 1713.[3] In medicine it came to mean the number or proportion of people who have a disease at a given time.[4][6] The older senses are now rare.[2][4] The variant prevalency is recorded from the early 17th century.[4]

Timeline

  • 1590s – mastery, according to Etymonline.[3]
  • 1604 – the fact of prevailing; predominance.[2]
  • 1612 – effective force, efficacy (obsolete by 1879).[2]
  • 1646 – greater power or strength (rare).[2]
  • 1682 – the condition of being widespread or common.[2][6]
  • 1713 – widespread occurrence, according to Etymonline.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The fact or condition of being widespread or common: the prevalence of mobile phones.[6][2][4]
  2. In medicine and epidemiology, the proportion of a population that has a particular disease at a given time.[6][4]
  3. (rare) The fact of prevailing; mastery.[2][4]
  4. (obsolete, 1612–1879) Effective force or influence; efficacy.[2][4]

Word family

  • nonprevalence
  • seroprevalence

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster