reduce

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /rɪˈdjuːs/, US /rɪˈduːs/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English reducen (“to lead back, bring back”),^[2][3] borrowed from Old French reducer and directly from Latin redūcere (“to lead back, bring back; restore”),^[2][4] from re- (“back”) and dūcere (“to lead, bring”),^[2][4] from Proto-Indo-European *deuk- (“to lead”).^[2] It is related to duct, deduce, induce and tow.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To bring back to mind: about 1375 in the OED.^[6] Barnhart dates redusen to about 1375 as “bring or lead back, bring down”, and “to trace to a source” to probably about 1378, in Wycliffe's writings.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was “to bring back”, to a place or state, hence “to restore”;^[7][2] in Middle English it was largely positive, “to bring back to virtue, to God, to health”.^[2] Trench shows how in 17th-century writers, such as Holland, Bacon and Shakespeare, a thing reduced was brought back to its former, often larger or happier, state.^[8] “To bring to an inferior condition” is from the 1570s,^[2] “to subdue by force of arms” from the 1610s,^[2] and “to bring to a lower rank” from the 1640s, with the military reduce to the ranks from 1802.^[2] The sense “to diminish” is dated about 1380 by Barnhart,^[4] the 16th century by Hoad,^[9] and 1787 by Etymonline.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1375 – to bring back.^[6][4]
• c. 1378 – to trace to a source.^[4]
• c. 1380 – to diminish, in Barnhart.^[4]
• 1570s – to bring to an inferior state.^[2]
• 1610s – to subdue.^[2]
• 1640s – to lower in rank.^[2]
• 1802 – reduce to the ranks.^[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To make smaller in size, amount or degree; to diminish.
2. To bring to a weaker, poorer or humbler state.
3. To conquer or subdue.
4. To lower in rank; to demote.
5. In chemistry, to remove oxygen from, or add electrons to, a substance.
6. In cooking, to thicken a sauce by boiling.
7. To lose weight, as by dieting.

Word family

• reducer
• reducibility
• reducible
• reducibly
• reductant
• reducing agent

Related words

• reductase
• reduction
• reductive
• duct
• deduce
• induce
• produce
• seduce
• conduct
• duke

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press