Etymologically
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prophecy

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈpɹɑfɪsi/[1]
  • UK: /ˈpɹɒfɪsi/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English prophecie, also prophesie,[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French prophecie, also profecie and prophetie,[5][2][3][6] and partly directly borrowed from Late Latin prophētīa,[5][2][3] from Ancient Greek προφητεία (prophēteía, “gift of interpreting the will of the gods”),[2][3][5] from προφήτης (prophḗtēs), prophet, and the suffix -ία (-ía).[5][4][7] The Greek noun prophḗtēs is formed from πρό (pró, “before”) and the root of φημί (phēmí, “to speak”).[3][8] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from 1119 according to the OED,[5] and the Anglo-Norman Dictionary has it from the second quarter of the 12th century, both for a prediction and for a divinely inspired utterance.[9] The OED thinks that the rare sense "a company of prophets" may have been formed independently in English from prophet.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

What a prophet does or says; divinely inspired utterance: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle.[5][2] Etymonline dates the word about 1200,[3] and Barnhart probably before 1200.[10]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the work of a prophet who speaks for God.[5][3] By the late 13th century it also meant a single inspired text or utterance,[5][3] and by about 1330, in Arthour and Merlin, the foretelling of future events in general, without any divine inspiration;[5] Gower used it before 1393 for a sign that foreshadows something.[5] In the Church it named a reading from the Old Testament prophets in the liturgy (about 1450),[5][4] and in Reformation England a meeting for the exposition of Scripture (1577).[5] Johnson (1755) gave only "a declaration of something to come; prediction".[11]

Timeline

  • c. 1225 – divinely inspired utterance, in the Ancrene Riwle.[5]
  • before 1325 – a single prophetic text or revelation.[5]
  • c. 1330 – a prediction of future events.[5]
  • c. 1350 – the verb prophesy.[2]
  • before 1393 – a sign that foreshadows something, in Gower.[5]
  • c. 1400 – a company of prophets (obsolete).[5]
  • 1577 – a meeting for the exposition of Scripture.[5]
  • after 1700 – the spellings prophecy for the noun and prophesy for the verb fully settle.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A message believed to come from God or a deity, spoken or written by a prophet.
  2. A statement of what will happen in the future; a prediction: Her prophecy that the shop would fail came true.
  3. The gift or activity of a prophet.

Usage notes

In current spelling the noun is prophecy and the verb prophesy, but Barnhart notes that the two spellings were not fully kept apart until after 1700,[2] and Merriam-Webster still records prophesy as a less common spelling of the noun.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.