rectify

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English rectifien, also rectefien and retifien,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French rectifier (“to make straight, set right”),^{[5][3][6][7][8][9]} from Late Latin rēctificō (“to set right, make straight”).^[5][9][8] The OED gives the French source as Anglo-Norman and Middle French, recorded in Old French from about 1280 for "to correct, set right", from 1314 for "to make straight" and in the 14th century for "to distil again".^[9] It dates the Latin verb to the 4th century, with senses such as "to purify" in alchemy and "to straighten" in medieval British sources;^[9] most other dictionaries call it Medieval Latin.^{[6][3][10][7]} It is formed from rēctus (“straight, right”), which is related to right, and -ficō, the combining form of faciō (“to make, do”);^{[5][3][6][10]} Barnhart assumes an unrecorded adjective *rēctificus in between.^[3] Etymonline traces the adjective to Proto-Indo-European *reg- (“to move in a straight line”) and the verb to *dhe- (“to set, put”).^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make right or remedy: 1392, as rectifien, according to Barnhart.^[3] The OED's first record, before 1400 in a translation of Lanfranc's Science of Cirurgie, is medical: to restore an organ or part of the body to health, or to cure a disorder.^[9] Etymonline likewise gives "to cure, heal, remedy" as the first sense, about 1400.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The medical senses died out by the 16th to 18th centuries,^[9] while the general sense of setting a state of affairs right grew from the early 15th century, in Hoccleve.^[9][2] In the early 15th century the verb also meant to set a person straight in conduct, and in the late 15th century it came to mean correcting an error.^[5][2] Alchemy and chemistry gave the sense of purifying a substance by repeated distillation, recorded from about 1425,^[9][5][11] which survives in rectified spirit.^[12] The literal Latin sense, to make straight, appears in surgery from about 1475, and in mathematics from 1673 for finding the length of a curve.^[9] Johnson (1755) defined it as to make right, reform or redress.^[13] In 1892 the verb was applied to converting alternating current into direct current,^[3] the source of rectifier in electronics.^[12]

Timeline

• 1392 – to make right, remedy.^[3]
• before 1400 – to restore an organ to health; to cure a disorder (both obsolete).^[9][5]
• c. 1412 – to remedy an undesirable state of affairs.^[9][2]
• c. 1425 – to purify a substance by distillation.^[9][5]
• c. 1475 – to reform a person; to straighten.^[9]
• 1588 – to correct a mistake or omission.^[9]
• 1673 – in mathematics, to find the length of a curve.^[9]
• 1892 – to convert alternating current into direct current.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put right; to correct or remedy: The bank rectified the billing error within a week.^[12][10][7]
2. To purify or refine a substance, especially by repeated distillation.^[12][9][7]
3. To convert alternating current into direct current.^[12][3]
4. In mathematics, to find the length of a curve.^[12][9]
5. To bring back to a proper or healthy condition.^[9][10]

Word family

• rectifiable
• rectification
• nonrectified
• unrectified
• rectifier

Related words

• rectitude
• direct
• correct
• right
• -fy

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.