stringent

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin stringēns (“drawing tight”), the present participle of stringō (“to draw tight, bind, compress”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} which also meant "to touch lightly, graze".^[2][8] Klein, following Walde and Hofmann, sees in it a merger: one source is related to striga (“stroke, furrow”), stria (“furrow”) and strike, and the other to Ancient Greek στράγξ (stránx, “a drop”) and στραγγάλη (strangálē, “halter”).^[9] The American Heritage Dictionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *streyg-.^[4][1] The past participle of the Latin verb gave strict,^[6][10] and the verb itself, through French, gave strain.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Astringent, constrictive or styptic, especially of a taste: 1605, in Thomas Tymme's translation of Joseph Du Chesne's Practise of Chymicall and Hermeticall Physicke.^[2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) still defined the word as "binding; contracting".^[11][2] From 1653, in Henry More, it was used of reasoning that compels assent,^[2][7] and the Oxford Dictionary of English dates the word from the mid 17th century in that sense.^[12] The sense "drawing or binding tight" is recorded from 1736, in James Thomson, but stayed rare.^[2][6] The main modern sense, of rules and requirements, "strict, rigorous, exacting", appears only in 1846,^[2][5][3] and the noun stringency in 1844.^[5] The financial sense, of a money market in which credit is short, followed in 1870, in a book on Wall Street.^[2][13] Etymonline treats the older senses as obsolete,^[3] but Merriam-Webster still records the sense "sharp or bitter to the taste".^[14]

Timeline

• 1605 – astringent, constrictive, especially of a taste.^[2][5]
• 1653 – of reasoning, compelling assent.^[2][7]
• 1673 – in fortification, grazing (obsolete).^[2]
• 1736 – drawing or binding tight.^[2]
• 1844 – the noun stringency.^[5]
• 1846 – of rules or requirements, strict, rigorous.^[2][5][3]
• 1870 – of the money market, tight.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Demanding close attention to rules or standards; strict, rigorous or severe: The museum has stringent rules on handling old maps.^{[13][4][14][2]}
2. (finance) Marked by a shortage of money or credit; tight.^[13][4][2]
3. Constricted or tight; binding closely.^[4][14]
4. Of reasoning, compelling belief; convincing.^[2][6]
5. Sharp or astringent to the senses, especially to the taste.^[14][2]

Word family

• stringency
• stringently
• nonstringent
• unstringent

Related words

• strict
• strain
• astringent
• constrain
• restrict

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 p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster