Etymologically
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reduce

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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
  • 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