Etymologically
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several

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈsev.ᵊr.ᵊl/, /ˈsev.rᵊl/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English several, borrowed from Anglo-Norman several,[2][3][4] from Medieval Latin sēparālis (“separable, separate”),[2][3][5] from Latin sēpar (“separate, different”),[2][6] a back-formation from sēparāre (“to separate”),[2][5][7] itself from sē- (“apart”) and parāre (“to make ready, prepare”).[2] Anglo-Latin also had the variant severālis.[2][8] It is related to separate.[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

“A number of, some”, in the form saverale, probably about 1421, and “separate, individual” in 1422.[7] Etymonline gives the early 15th century for the sense “existing apart, independent”.[2]

Semantic evolution

The first senses stressed separateness: of a person or thing, “standing apart, distinct”, a sense obsolete since the 18th century.[8][2] In law several meant “belonging to each individual separately, not held in common” from the 1420s,[9][7] and since about 1500 it has meant “various, different”, as in went their several ways.[2] Etymonline says the modern sense “more than one” grew out of the legal uses in the 1530s,[2] and by the mid-17th century the word was a vague numeral with no idea of difference left in it.[2] The pronoun is from 1639.[4] Herrick wrote in 1648 that dreams hurl each one “into a sev'rall world”.[2] A rare verb meant “to enclose (common land) as private property” from the late 15th to the late 18th century.[8] The jocular ordinal severalth is American and dates from 1902.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1421 – a number of, some.[7]
  • 1422 – separate, individual.[7]
  • c. 1500 – various, different.[2]
  • 1530s – more than one.[2]
  • 1532 – legal sense, pertaining to each individual.[7]
  • 1639 – pronoun.[4]
  • 1902 – severalth.[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. More than two or three but not many.
  2. Separate, distinct, individual.
  3. Respectively different; various: went their several ways.
  4. (law) Binding or concerning each party separately, as in joint and several.

Pronoun

  1. An indefinite small number of people or things; a few.

Word family

  • severally
  • severalfold

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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)