resumption

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English resumpcion,^[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman resumpcion, also Middle French resumption and resompcion,^[3][2][4] and directly borrowed from Late Latin resūmptiō (“a taking up again; recovery”),^{[3][5][6][7][2]} a noun of action from Latin resūmptus, the past participle of resūmō (“to take up again, resume”).^[5][4][8][9] The Latin verb is formed from re- (“again”) and sūmō (“to take, obtain”), itself from sub- and emō (“to take, buy”).^[2] In Anglo-Norman and Middle French the noun meant the action of taking again (1374) and, in law, the action of repossessing (1404 or earlier);^[3] the word is now rare in French.^[3] It is related to resume, and Klein compares sumption.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A feudal and legal term: the taking back, by the Crown or another authority, of lands, rights or goods previously granted to someone, first recorded in 1443 in the proceedings of the Privy Council.^[3][2] Merriam-Webster also dates this sense to the 15th century, and Dictionary.com places the word in 1400–1450.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The general sense, taking up or starting something again after an interruption, appears in the 1580s, first in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589);^[3][2] a year earlier Fraunce used the word in rhetoric for the repetition of a word or phrase, a sense now rare.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as the act of resuming, quoting Denham.^[10] From 1694 it was also used more generally of taking something back into one's own possession.^[3] In 19th-century American finance resumption was the return of the government to payments in specie (coin) after a period of paper money;^[2][3][4] the legal sense survives chiefly in Australian law.^[3] A Welsh poetic device, beginning each verse with the same letter, was briefly called resumption in 1856.^[3]

Timeline

• 1443 – the reassumption by the Crown of lands or rights previously granted.^[3][2]
• 1588 – the repetition of a word or phrase for clarity or emphasis; a recapitulation.^[3]
• 1589 – the taking up of something again after an interruption.^[3] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1580s.^[2]
• 1694 – a taking back of something into one's own possession.^[3]
• 1866 – in banking, a return to specie payments.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of starting something again after a pause or interruption: The resumption of peace talks was announced on Monday.^[11][4][3]
2. The taking back of something that had been given up or lost.^[4][3]
3. (law) The taking back by the Crown or another authority of lands or rights previously granted; now chiefly in Australia.^[3][4][8]
4. (banking) A return to payment in specie after a period of paper currency.^[4][3]

Word family

• nonresumption

Related words

• resume
• résumé
• assumption
• consumption
• presumption
• sumption

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins