prolong

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English prolongen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Middle French prolonguer, also prolonger,^[5][4][3] and directly borrowed from Late Latin prōlongō (“to lengthen, extend”),^[5][2][6][7] formed from prō- (“forth, forward”) and longus (“long”).^[3][2][4] The Latin adjective is related to long,^[2][8] and the American Heritage Dictionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *del-.^[3] Barnhart and Etymonline think the English verb may also be in part a back-formation from prolongation, recorded from 1392.^[6][2] The French verb is recorded from 1213, and in post-classical Latin the verb also meant to delay, to postpone, to keep someone waiting and to purloin.^[5] The same elements gave purloin, a doublet of prolong.^[8][9][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To extend in duration, to make last longer: about 1425, in John Lydgate's Troy Book,^[5] which also has the senses to delay or postpone and to keep a person waiting.^[5] Barnhart dates the word to about 1408, in Lydgate's Reson and Sensuallyte.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle and early modern English the verb meant both to lengthen in time and to delay or put off, as the Latin did;^[5][2] the senses of postponing an event (to 1785), keeping someone waiting (to 1662), proroguing parliament (to 1692) and deferring a debt (1552–66) have all died out.^[5] The sense of lengthening in space was added in the 16th century (1574),^[5][7] at about the same time as the French sense (1538),^[5] and since about 1560 it was also used of drawing out a sound or a syllable.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave "to lengthen out" and "to put off to a distant time" as its two senses.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – to extend in duration; to delay, postpone; to keep a person waiting.^[5]
• c. 1450 – to prorogue parliament (obsolete by 1692).^[5]
• 1488 – noun, in Scots, delay (obsolete by 1626).^[5]
• c. 1560 – to lengthen the pronunciation of a sound or syllable.^[5]
• 1574 – to extend in spatial length.^[5][7]
• 1905 – noun, a device that extends a piece of apparatus.^[5][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make something last longer; to extend in time: The doctors managed to prolong her life by several years.^[11][4][5]
2. To make something longer in space; to lengthen.^[11][4][5]
3. To draw out the sound of a word or syllable.^[5][4]
4. (obsolete) To postpone or put off.^[5][10]

Word family

• prolonger
• prolongation
• prolongable
• prolongableness
• prolongably
• prolongment
• prolongate

Related words

• purloin
• long
• elongate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ 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.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins