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science

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈsaɪ.əns/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English science, borrowed from Old French science (“knowledge, learning”),[2][3] from Latin scientia (“knowledge, expertness”),[2][3][4] from sciēns (“knowing, skilled”), present participle of scīre (“to know”).[2][5][4] Etymonline and Barnhart think the Latin verb originally meant “to separate one thing from another, distinguish”, related to scindere (“to cut, split”),[2][3][6] from Proto-Indo-European *skei- (“to cut, split”).[2][5] Latin scīre is also in conscience and nice.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Knowledge, a branch of learning, skill: about 1340,[3] or before 1340 in the OED, as “the state or fact of knowing”.[8]

Semantic evolution

Word Origins notes that science was originally knowledge in general, or any branch of it, including the arts.[7] From the late 14th century it meant book learning, a particular branch of knowledge, and skill or cleverness.[2] A craft or trade was a science from about 1400.[2][8] Collective human knowledge gained by observation, experiment and reasoning is from the late 14th century.[2] The modern restricted sense, a body of methodical observations about a subject, is by 1725,[2][8] and in the 17th and 18th centuries this was commonly called philosophy.[2] The distinction of science from art is from 1678.[8] Trained skill, especially in boxing, is science from 1785,[8] a use also found in Somerset dialect.[9] Science fiction is a 20th-century compound, and blind with science is from 1937.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 1340 – knowledge, learning.[3][8]
  • late 14th century – a branch of knowledge.[2]
  • c. 1480 – a craft or trade.[8]
  • 1678 – contrasted with art.[8]
  • 1725 – the modern restricted sense.[2][8]
  • 1785 – trained skill, as in boxing.[8]
  • 1937 – blind with science.[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The observation, experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena.
  2. A branch of such study: the natural sciences.
  3. Systematic knowledge of any subject; a method of study applied to it.
  4. Knowledge, especially gained through experience; skill.

Word family

  • antiscience
  • interscience
  • proscience
  • scientism
  • subscience
  • nonscience
  • omniscience
  • pseudoscience

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 i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  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. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ 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)