saint

Pronunciation

• IPA: /seɪnt/, weak /sənt/, /sɪnt/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English seinte, sainte, borrowed from Old French saint, seinte (“holy, pious”),^[2][3][4] from Latin sānctus (“holy, consecrated”), the past participle of sancīre (“to consecrate”).^[2][3][5] It displaced or altered Old English sanct, which was directly from Latin sanctus.^[2][4] It is related to sacred, sanctify and sanctuary.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

As an adjective, “holy”, before the names of saints: about 1122 in the OED, the early 12th century in Etymonline; the abbreviation S. or St. is in Old English by 963.^[7][2][3]

Semantic evolution

By about 1200 it had become a noun, a canonized person,^[2] and a member of the elect of God in the 14th century.^[4] A moral or virtuous person, pure in heart and life, is by the late 13th century,^[2] and a person of great holiness from the 16th.^[4] The verb, to be or become a saint, is from before 1200 in the Ancrene Riwle, and in 1375 it took on the sense “to make a saint”.^[3] Sainthood is from 1550 and saintly from 1660.^[3] The names of many diseases, such as St Vitus's dance, honour saints thought to ward them off.^[6]

Timeline

• 963 – the abbreviation St.^[3]
• c. 1122 – before a name.^[7]
• c. 1200 – noun, a canonized person.^[2]
• late 13th century – a virtuous person.^[2]
• 1375 – verb, to canonize.^[3]
• 1660 – saintly.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person officially recognized by a church, after death, as very holy and worthy of veneration.
2. A very good, kind or patient person.
3. A person who has died and gone to heaven.

Verb

1. To declare someone a saint; to canonize.

Word family

• saintdom
• saintlike
• saintless
• sainthood
• saintly
• saintship
• patron saint

Related words

• Santa
• sacred
• sanctify
• sanctity
• sanctuary
• sanction

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press