resurrection

Etymology

It is borrowed from Anglo-Norman resurrecciun and resurrection, and also directly borrowed from Late Latin resurrēctiō (“a rising again from the dead”).^[2][3][4][5] The Latin noun is formed on resurrēctus, the past participle of resurgō (“to rise again”),^[2][6][7][8] from re- (“again”) and surgō (“to rise”), the source of surge.^[9][8] In Anglo-Norman and Old French the word meant rising from a seat (early 12th century), the feast of Christ's resurrection, Easter, and the rising of the dead at the Last Judgement;^[2] in Christian Latin it was used for the rising of Christ in the Vetus Latina and for the rising of the dead in the Vulgate.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The church festival commemorating Christ's rising from the dead, Easter: c1300, in the South English Legendary life of St Brendan,^[2][3] spelled resureccioun in Etymonline, which also gives a picture of the event as an early sense.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The rising of Christ himself is recorded from about 1350, as is the rising of the dead at the Last Judgement as a tenet of belief;^[2] a picture or play of the Resurrection is recorded from before 1400.^[2] The general sense, revival of something that had fallen into disuse or obscurity, appears about 1450 in a manuscript of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women,^[2] though Barnhart dates the meaning "revival, restoration" from 1649.^[3] From 1564 the word was used of exhumation,^[2] and in the early 19th century a resurrection man or resurrectionist was a body-snatcher who dug up corpses to sell to surgeons for dissection.^[2][10] The verb resurrect was formed from the noun by back-formation in the 18th century.^[11] In Cornish dialect Resurrection-day meant Easter Sunday.^[12]

Timeline

• c1300 – the festival of Easter.^[2][3]
• c1350 – the rising of Christ; the rising of the dead.^[2]
• a1400 – a representation of the Resurrection.^[2]
• c1450 – revival, restoration.^[2]
• 1564 – exhumation.^[2]
• 1771 – a person or thing resurrected.^[2]
• 1826 – resurrectionist, a body-snatcher.^[10]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. (Christianity, usually Resurrection) The rising of Jesus from the dead after his crucifixion; also, the feast of Easter commemorating it.
2. (Christianity) The rising of all the dead at the Last Judgement.
3. The act of rising from the dead, or the belief in it.
4. A revival of something that had died out or been forgotten: the resurrection of a long-closed theatre.

Word family

• resurrectional
• resurrective
• nonresurrection
• postresurrection
• resurrectionary
• resurrectionism
• resurrectionist
• resurrection fern

Related words

• resurge
• resurgence
• resurrect
• resurgent
• surge
• insurrection
• source

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)