registration

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˌredʒ.ɪˈstreɪ.ʃən/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French registration and directly borrowed from Medieval Latin registrātiō (“a registering”) (accusative registrationem),^[2][3][4] a noun of action from the past participle stem of registrāre, from registrum (see register),^[2] based on Latin regerere “to enter, record”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The act of entering in a register: perhaps 1566 in the OED, the 1560s in Etymonline.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries it gave a back-formed verb, registrate.^[2] An entry made in a register is from 1611.^[6] Registration acts, fees and courts are named from 1885.^[6] In organ playing, the choice and combination of stops for a piece is from 1881,^[6][7] and in printing the state of being in register, with impressions exactly aligned, from 1890.^[6] The registration number of a motor vehicle is a 20th-century British use.^[8]

Timeline

• 1566 – the act of registering.^[6]
• 1611 – an entry in a register.^[6]
• 1881 – organ registration.^[6]
• 1890 – in printing.^[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The act of registering, or of being recorded on an official list: voter registration.
2. An entry in a register, or a document showing it.
3. (British) The registration number of a motor vehicle.
4. (music) The combination of organ stops chosen for a piece.

Word family

• registrational
• misregistration
• nonregistration
• preregistration
• reregistration

Related words

• register
• registrar
• registry
• regest

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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins