Etymologically
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stationary

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈsteɪʃəˌnɛɹi/[1]
  • UK: /ˈsteɪʃ(ə)n(ə)ɹi/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English stacionarie, also stacionarye,[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin statiōnārius (“belonging to a detachment of soldiers on guard duty”),[5][6][7] from statiō (“a standing, post, station”) and the suffix -ārius.[5][2][3] In classical Latin the adjective is recorded only in the military sense;[2][5] post-classical Latin used it of a planet with a fixed station (Isidore, before 636), and later for "abiding", for canons bound to residence, and as a noun for a shopkeeping merchant or a bookseller.[5] Etymonline takes the English word via Anglo-Latin,[2] while the American Heritage Dictionary has it through Old French stationnaire and Medieval Latin;[4] the OED notes that the French word, recorded from the 13th century for something that does not move and for a planet with no apparent motion, may have influenced the English senses.[5] It is related to station.[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a planet or the sun, having for a time no apparent motion across the sky: about 1450, in a translation of Richard of Wallingford's Exafrenon.[5] Etymonline dates this astronomical sense to the late 14th century,[2] and the first edition of the OED to 1426.[8]

Semantic evolution

From astronomy the word spread in the 17th century to anything fixed in one place: residing in one place rather than wandering (1604), meant to stay in one spot, as a machine part in operation (1631), and simply standing still (1668).[5][2] The transferred sense "neither advancing nor declining, unchanged" is recorded from 1628.[5][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "fixed; not progressive".[9] Later uses are technical: a disease recurring in one place, as in stationary fever (1684), a battle fought without either side advancing (1737), the mathematical sense (1834), a statistical series in equilibrium (1938), and a satellite that seems to stay above one point of the earth (1947).[5][7] The word was also used for "of a station", of a military post or of special church services,[7] and in the sense "of a stationer" it was spelled stationery by association with that word.[5][10]

Timeline

  • c. 1450 – of a planet, having no apparent motion.[5]
  • 1604 – residing in one place, not migratory.[5]
  • 1628 – remaining unchanged in condition.[5][2]
  • 1631 – fixed in position, not meant to move.[5]
  • 1668 – standing still, not moving at the moment.[5]
  • 1684 – of a disease, recurring in one locality.[5]
  • 1685 – first known use of sense 1 in Merriam-Webster.[3]
  • 1737 – of a battle, fought without advance or retreat.[5]
  • 1834 – in mathematics, not instantaneously changing.[5]
  • 1938 – in statistics, of a series in equilibrium.[5]
  • 1947 – of an artificial satellite, staying over one point.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Not moving; standing still: The bus was stationary at the lights when the van hit it.[11][3][5]
  2. Fixed in one place; not meant or able to be moved: a stationary exercise bike.[11][3][5]
  3. Not changing in condition or amount; stable: The town's population has stayed stationary for a decade.[11][3][5]
  4. Staying in one place; not migratory or itinerant.[11][5]
  5. (astronomy) Of a planet, seeming to have no motion across the sky.[5][7]
  6. Of an artificial satellite, geostationary.[5][7]
  7. (mathematics) Not changing at a given instant; having a derivative equal to zero.[5][7]
  8. (statistics) Of a time series, having properties that do not change with time.[5][7]

Word family

  • unstationary
  • geostationary
  • nonstationary
  • stationary engine
  • stationary front
  • stationary bicycle
  • stationary wave

Usage notes

Stationary and stationery, writing materials, are often confused: the adjective means "not moving or changing", the noun means paper, envelopes and the like.[12][11][13]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  12. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), 5th ed., Harlow: Pearson Longman