reliance

Etymology

It is from English rely + -ance.^[2][3][4][5] The verb goes back through Middle English relien (“to rally, assemble”) to Old French relier (“to assemble, fasten”), from Latin religō (“to bind fast”), from re- and ligō (“to bind”).^[4][6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Trust or confidence in a person or thing, dependence on them: 1606, in Bishop Joseph Hall's Heaven upon Earth.^[2][7] Etymonline gives about 1600,^[4] and Barnhart dates it to 1607, citing Shakespeare's Timon of Athens,^[3] which Johnson also quoted: "my reliance on his fracted dates".^[8]

Semantic evolution

The noun appeared a generation after the verb rely took on its sense of depending on someone with full trust, in the 1570s.^[4] It was first construed with in, on or upon, and in has since dropped out.^[2] From 1613 it could also mean the person or thing relied on, a sense the OED now calls rare and the American Heritage Dictionary archaic;^[2][6] the Shorter Oxford dates this sense only to the late 18th century.^[9] Webster (1828) described it as a settled state of mind resting on full belief in a person's truthfulness or in the certainty of a fact.^[10] The adjective reliant followed in 1856.^[3][5]

Timeline

• c. 1600 – the date Etymonline gives.^[4]
• 1606 – trust, dependence, with in, on or upon.^[2][7]
• 1607 – in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens.^[3]
• 1609 – without a construction, the quality of being reliant (now rare).^[2]
• 1613 – a thing relied on.^[2]
• 1856 – the adjective reliant.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Dependence on someone or something: the farm's reliance on seasonal workers.
2. Trust or confidence in a person or thing: Investors put no reliance on the official figures.
3. (archaic) A person or thing relied on; a mainstay.

Word family

• misreliance
• nonreliance
• self-reliance

Related words

• rely
• reliable
• reliant
• rally
• ligament

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster treat reliance among the synonyms of trust.^[6][7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse