Etymologically
Log in

purity

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 25 October 2026 at 23:35. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈpjʊəɹɪti/, /ˈpjɔːɹɪti/[1]
  • US: /ˈpjʊɹɪti/, /ˈpjɝɪti/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English purte, later purete and puryte,[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French purté (“freedom from moral pollution”),[5][2] from Late Latin pūritās (“cleanness, pureness”),[5][3][2] from Latin pūrus (“clean, pure, unmixed”), the source of pure, with the suffix -tās.[5][3] The Old French word, recorded from the end of the 12th century, is the inherited form, while the Anglo-Norman and Middle French purité and pureté, from which the later English forms come, were remodelled after the Latin noun.[5] The Anglo-Norman word, recorded from the early 12th century, already meant both physical pureness and moral or spiritual purity.[6] Other Romance forms are puritat, puridad and purità.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Moral or spiritual pureness, freedom from sin; innocence, chastity: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle,[5][2] about 1200 in Etymonline.[3] Barnhart also finds it as a surname in 1198.[2]

Semantic evolution

The religious sense came first; in the Vulgate Latin pūritās already meant moral and spiritual purity.[5] The physical sense, freedom from mixture or contamination, followed in the 15th century, first in a translation of Palladius on farming,[5][3] and since 1553 the word also meant freedom from foreign elements or outside influence, as of language or style.[5] French developed the same senses: the purity of language is recorded there in 1580.[5] The spelling purity first appears in 1563.[2] Johnson (1755) gave three senses: cleanness, freedom from guilt, and chastity.[7] In physics the word also measures how much of a single-frequency colour a mixture contains.[8][9]

Timeline

  • 1198 – as a surname.[2]
  • c. 1225 – moral or spiritual purity, chastity, in the Ancrene Riwle.[5][2]
  • c. 1440 – physical pureness, freedom from contamination.[5]
  • before 1475 – a pure substance (obsolete by 1720).[5]
  • 1553 – freedom from foreign elements; refinement, clarity.[5]
  • 1563 – the spelling purity.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The state of being free from dirt, mixture or contamination: The lab tested the purity of the gold.[8][9][5]
  2. Freedom from sin or moral fault; innocence or chastity.[9][5]
  3. Freedom from foreign elements, especially in language or style.[9][5]
  4. (physics) The proportion of a pure spectral colour in a mixture with white or achromatic light.[8][9]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster