signatory

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin signātōrius (“of or belonging to sealing”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} formed from signātus, the past participle of signō (“to mark, seal”), and the suffix -ōrius.^[2][3][6][5] The verb comes from signum (“a mark, sign”), the source of sign.^[8][6] In post-classical Latin the adjective could also describe a letter of the alphabet that served as a signature (before 1513).^[2] The OED compares “signatory ring” with ānulus signātōrius in classical Latin and with the earlier signet ring, and the noun with the earlier signator and signatary.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Used in sealing documents; serving as a signet or seal, often in the phrase “signatory ring”: 1647, in S. Torshell.^[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1640s, and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster to 1647.^[3][4][5]

Semantic evolution

The sealing sense is now obsolete or rare;^[5][3] the Shorter Oxford finds it only in the mid-17th century.^[9] In Scotland a signatory was briefly, from 1659, a signed document submitted to the Baron of Exchequer that specified the provenance of a royal grant or charter.^[2] The modern noun, a person or state that has signed a document, especially a treaty, is recorded from 1826 in the OED and in Merriam-Webster,^[2][5] and by 1866 in Etymonline and Barnhart.^[3][4] The adjective "having signed" followed: 1847 in the OED,^[2] 1870 in Etymonline and Barnhart,^[3][4] and Etymonline thinks the noun led to it.^[3]

Timeline

• 1647 – used in sealing documents.^[2][5]
• 1659 – noun, in Scotland, a signed document submitted to the Exchequer (obsolete).^[2]
• 1826 – noun, a person or state that has signed a document, especially a treaty.^[2][5]
• 1847 – adjective, having signed a document.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person, organization or state that has signed a document such as a treaty or contract, or on whose behalf it was signed: Forty nations were signatories to the convention.^[8][5][2]

Adjective

1. Having signed a document or treaty, and so bound by its terms.^[8][5][2]
2. (obsolete) Used in sealing documents.^[5][9][2]

Word family

• cosignatory
• nonsignatory

Related words

• sign
• signature
• signet

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press