rogation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English rogacioun,^[2][3][4] partly borrowed from Middle French rogacion^[5] and partly directly borrowed from Latin rogātiō (“request, questioning; a measure put before a Roman assembly”),^{[5][2][6][3][7]} from rogātus, the past participle of rogō (“to ask, request”),^[5][3][8] with the suffix -iō.^[5][8] Post-classical Latin used the plural Rogātiōnēs from the 6th century for the litanies before Ascension Day, and the English plural follows it.^[5] English had earlier taken the same Latin word through French as roveisoun, from Anglo-Norman roveison, now obsolete.^[5][2] Etymonline sees the Latin verb as apparently a figurative use of a verb meaning "to stretch out the hand", from Proto-Indo-European *reg- (“to move in a straight line”),^[6][3] and Klein relates it by vowel gradation to regō (“to guide, rule”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Litany of the Saints as chanted on the three days before Ascension Day, and those days themselves: before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon.^[5] The MED's quotations of the plural rogacions start around 1400.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word already joined two very different uses of "asking": a magistrate's asking the people to accept a law, and later the Church's asking God in prayer.^[5][6] English took the church sense first and the Roman one in the 15th century, in another translation of the Polychronicon.^[5][9] Medieval usage distinguished the Major Rogation of April 25 from the Minor Rogations, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension Day, which were days of prayer and fasting.^[2] These days brought processions round the fields, to bless the crops and pray for a good harvest, and also to bless each parish's boundary markers.^[6] Protestants discouraged them as superstition, but they continued or revived in modified form as beating the bounds.^[6] Around them grew the compounds Rogation Sunday, Rogation week, Rogationtide and rogation flower, the milkwort carried in the procession.^[7] From the 16th century the word could mean begging for alms, at first with a pun on rogue;^[5][7] the OED calls this now rare and the Shorter Oxford dates its end to the early 17th century.^[5][7] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "litany; supplication", quoting Hooker.^[10]

Timeline

• before 1387 – the litany chanted on the three days before Ascension Day; those days.^[5]
• before 1475 – in Roman history, a proposed law submitted to the people for acceptance.^[5]
• c. 1536 – begging for alms, with a pun on rogue.^[5]
• 1598 – a formal request, in James VI's True Law of Free Monarchies.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Christianity) Solemn supplication or litany, often in the plural, especially as chanted in procession on the three days before Ascension Day.^{[8][3][5][11]}
2. rogations: the ceremonies of the Rogation Days, or those days themselves.^[12][5][7]
3. (Roman history) A consul's or tribune's submission of a proposed law to the people for acceptance; also the law so proposed.^{[3][12][5][7]}
4. (rare) Begging for alms.^[5]
5. (obsolete, 1598 to the late 17th century) A formal request or petition.^[12][7][5]

Word family

• Rogationtide
• Rogation Days

Related words

• interrogation
• rogatory
• subrogation
• roveison
• abrogate
• arrogant
• arrogate
• derogate
• interrogate
• prerogative
• prorogue
• surrogate
• corvée
• regent
• right

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon 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
12. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster