Etymologically
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savage

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈsævɪd͡ʒ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sauvage, savage, borrowed from Old French sauvage (“wild, untamed, strange, pagan”), salvage (Anglo-Norman savage),[2][3][4] from Late Latin salvāticus, an alteration by vowel assimilation of Latin silvāticus, wild, of the woods,[2][3][5] from silva, a forest, grove (see sylvan).[3][6][7] By its origin, savages live in the woods.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of animals, fierce, ferocious: about 1250 in Barnhart, the mid-13th century in Etymonline, and late 12th century as a surname;[2][3] wild, untamed, about 1300.[3][8]

Semantic evolution

Of land, wild and uncultivated, it is from about 1300,[3] and of plants from 1422.[8] Of persons it first meant indomitable or valiant, also fierce and cruel,[3] and the extended sense uncivilized, barbarous, is first recorded in Gower's Confessio Amantis.[2] Of peoples regarded as uncivilized it is from 1588.[8] In heraldry, naked or clothed in foliage, it is from the 1570s,[3] and the -l- was often restored in 16th- and 17th-century spelling.[3][4] The noun, a wild person, is from about 1400,[3][2] and a brutal or cruel person, civilized or not, from about 1600.[3] The verb, to attack savagely, is from 1563,[2] and to maul with the teeth, of animals, from 1838.[3] In the late 18th century Rousseau imagined the noble savage, uncorrupted by civilization.[6] Savagery is from 1595, in Shakespeare.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1250 – ferocious.[2]
  • c. 1300 – wild, untamed.[3]
  • c. 1400 – a wild person (noun).[3]
  • 1563 – to attack savagely (verb).[2]
  • 1588 – uncivilized.[8]
  • 1595 – savagery.[2]
  • 1838 – to maul.[3]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Fierce and violent; ferocious or brutal.
  2. Wild and untamed.
  3. Of terrain, rugged and uncultivated.
  4. (offensive, old-fashioned) Uncivilized or primitive.

Noun

  1. (offensive, old-fashioned) A person regarded as primitive or uncivilized.
  2. A brutal or vicious person.

Verb

  1. To attack ferociously, as an animal does.
  2. To criticize without restraint or pity.

Word family

  • savagely
  • savageness
  • savagery
  • savagism
  • semisavage
  • unsavage
  • noble savage
  • sylvan

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press