secure

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /sɪˈkjʊə/, US /sɪˈkjʊr/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin sēcūrus (“free from care, quiet, easy; careless; of things, safe”),^[2][3] from a phrase *sē cūrā,^[2][3] from sē (“free from, without”) and cūrā, the ablative of cūra (“care”).^[2][3][4] The same Latin word had been borrowed earlier into Old English as sicor, Middle English sicker, and sure is a doublet altered in its passage through French.^[2][3][5] It is related to security and cure.^[6][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

“Without care or apprehension”, often “careless, over-confident”: probably 1533 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster,^[3][7] the 1530s in Etymonline, a sense now archaic.^[2]

Semantic evolution

“Safe, free from danger” is first recorded in 1582 in Barnhart,^[3] and of places, “unexposed”, by about 1600.^[2] “Affording grounds for confidence” is from the 1580s,^[2] and the mechanical sense “firmly fixed” by 1841.^[2] Of telephone lines, “not wiretapped”, it is by 1961.^[2] The verb, “to make safe”, is from 1593, in Shakespeare's 2 Henry VI,^[3] or about 1600;^[2] “to ensure, guarantee” and “to make fast” are from the 1650s,^[2] “to seize and hold” a person from the 1640s,^[2] and “to get possession of” from 1743.^[2][3] Security, freedom from anxiety, is from before 1425.^[3]

Timeline

• 1533 – without care.^[3][7]
• 1582 – safe.^[3]
• 1593 – verb, to make safe.^[3]
• 1650s – to fasten; to guarantee.^[2]
• 1743 – to obtain.^[2][3]
• 1841 – firmly fixed.^[2]
• 1961 – of telephone lines.^[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Free from danger or attack; safe.
2. Free from risk of loss.
3. Protected against unauthorized access or eavesdropping: a secure line.
4. Free from fear, anxiety or doubt.
5. Firmly fixed; not likely to fail or give way.
6. Certain; assured: a secure future.

Verb

1. To guard from danger or risk of loss.
2. To make firm or tight; to fasten.
3. To make certain; to ensure.
4. To guarantee payment of a loan, as with collateral.
5. To get possession of; to acquire.

Word family

• securable
• securely
• securement
• secureness
• securer
• oversecure
• supersecure
• unsecure

Related words

• security
• sure
• sicker
• cure
• insecure

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 m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster