remission

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English remissioun, also remissiun,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman remissiun and Old French remission,^[3][4][5] and directly borrowed from Latin remissiō (“a sending back; relaxation, abatement”),^[3][4][6] a noun of action from the past participle of remittō (“to send back, slacken, let go”),^[3][4][5][7] from re- (“back”) and mittō (“to send”).^[4][7] In post-classical Latin the noun also meant the forgiveness of sins, from the late 2nd century.^[3] The Anglo-Norman word already meant the pardon of sins in the first half of the 12th century, and French later added pardon for an offence, the reduction of a debt and the lessening of a disease.^[3] Compare remisión, remissão and remissione.^[3] It is related to remit and remiss.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Forgiveness or pardon of sins: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[3][5] Etymonline dates it to about 1200, as remissioun, "forgiveness or pardon of sins".^[4]

Semantic evolution

The religious sense came first, from the Church Latin of the forgiveness of sins,^[3][4] and the pardon of other offences followed in the 15th century, a sense the OED now calls historical.^[3] The Wycliffite Bible of the early 1380s used the word for release from a debt, as in the Jubilee year.^[3][2] From late in the 14th century it meant release from duty or obligation.^[4][2] From before 1398, in Trevisa, it also meant a lessening of force or intensity,^[3][5] and in the early 15th century, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery, the abatement of a disease or its symptoms,^[3][5][4] the sense that is now the commonest.^[8][9] The remission of a penalty is recorded from 1625,^[3] and the reduction of a prison sentence for good behaviour is now its chief use in this sense.^[3][8] Johnson (1755) listed abatement, relaxation and moderation first.^[10] In 17th-century grammar a remission was the weakening of an adjective's force by an adverb, the opposite of intension.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – forgiveness or pardon of sins, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[3][5]
• before 1382 – release from a debt; cancellation or reduction of a payment.^[3]
• c. 1384 – release from work or exertion (obsolete by 1845).^[3]
• before 1398 – lessening of force or intensity.^[3][5]
• c. 1425 – abatement of a disease or its symptoms.^[3][5]
• c. 1451 – pardon for a political or legal offence.^[3]
• 1625 – cancellation or reduction of a penalty or punishment.^[3]
• 1653 – in grammar, the weakening of an adjective by an adverb (obsolete by 1825).^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lessening of the symptoms of a disease, or a period during which they disappear: Her cancer has been in remission for three years.^[8][9][3]
2. A lessening of force or intensity; abatement.^[8][3]
3. Forgiveness of sins; pardon.^[8][9][3]
4. Cancellation of all or part of a debt, payment or penalty.^[9][3]
5. (chiefly British) A reduction of a prison sentence, especially for good behaviour.^[8][3]
6. Release from a penalty or obligation.^[8][3]

Word family

• nonremission

Related words

• remit
• remittance
• remittal
• remittent
• remitter
• unremittent
• unremitting
• remiss
• mission
• emit
• admit
• permission
• intermission

Usage notes

Collins records remittal as a less common synonym.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.