sanctify

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English seintefien, later sanctifien,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French saintefier, also saintifier and sanctifier,^[4][5][6] and directly borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin sānctificō (“to make holy”),^[2][4][7] formed from Latin sānctus (“holy”) and the element -ficō, from faciō (“to make”).^[5][8][9] Sānctus is the past participle of sanciō (“to consecrate”),^[8][5] and the American Heritage Dictionary sets it under Proto-Indo-European *sak-.^[8] Barnhart goes through sānctificus (“holy”).^[3] The French verb is from the 12th century,^[4][5] and Anglo-Norman seintefier is recorded from the first half of that century.^[10] The English spelling was altered after the Latin about 1400.^[5][3][11] It is related to saint.^[5][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To set apart for a religious office, to consecrate a king or the like, and to make a saint of: both in 1390, in John Gower's Confessio Amantis,^[4] before 1393 in Barnhart.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The first senses were acts of setting apart: consecrating a person and canonizing one, both now obsolete.^[4][6] The Latin-looking form appears before 1400 in Lanfranc's Science of Surgery, of the Holy Ghost making all things holy.^[3][2] From about 1402 the verb was used for imparting holiness to a thing or act, or making it binding by a religious sanction, a sense that remains.^[4][5] The sense of freeing a person from sin is first recorded in Tyndale's Bible of 1526, at 1 Corinthians 6:11.^[4][5] In Troilus and Cressida (1609) Shakespeare extended it to giving something an air of respectability,^[4] which Etymonline places about 1600.^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged quotes R. M. Weaver for this sense: "what mankind has sanctified with usage".^[12] Johnson (1755) put the removal of sin first and then "to make holy; to make a means of holiness", quoting Hooker.^[13] A slang sense, to blackmail someone, especially for political favours, is recorded from 1977.^[4]

Timeline

• 1390 – to consecrate to an office; to canonize (both now obsolete).^[4]
• before 1400 – the spelling sanctifien, of God making holy.^[3][2]
• c. 1402 – to impart holiness to a thing; to legitimate by religious sanction.^[4]
• before 1450 – to honour as holy (last record 1616).^[4]
• 1483 – to set apart a thing as sacred.^[4]
• before 1500 – to free from ceremonial impurity.^[4]
• 1526 – to purify a person from sin.^[4][5]
• 1597 – to make conducive to holiness or spiritual blessing.^[4]
• 1604 – to keep a day holy.^[4]
• 1609 – to entitle to respect; to justify or sanction.^[4]
• 1977 – slang, to blackmail, especially for political favours.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make holy or sacred; to set apart for religious use; to consecrate or hallow.^[14][12][4]
2. To free from sin; to purify morally.^[14][12][4]
3. To give an air of sacredness or respectability to; to sanction or justify: a practice sanctified by tradition.^[12][4][14]
4. To make productive of holiness or spiritual blessing.^[14][4]
5. (slang) To blackmail, especially for political favours.^[4]
6. (obsolete, 1390–1660) To consecrate a person to an office, such as a king.^[4][6]
7. (obsolete, 1390–1631) To canonize.^[4][6]
8. (obsolete, before 1450–1616) To honour as holy.^[4][6]

Word family

• sanctification
• sanctifier
• sanctifiable
• sanctifiableness
• sanctifiably
• sanctifyingly

Related words

• saint
• sanctity
• sanctuary
• sanction
• sanctimonious
• sacred

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins