Etymologically
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reliance

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Pronunciation

  • /ɹɪˈlaɪ.əns/[1]

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

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