summation

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin summātiō (“an adding up”),^[2][3][4][5] from Late Latin summātus, the past participle of summō (“to sum up”), from Latin summa (“sum”).^[2][4][3][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com call the Latin noun Medieval Latin.^[6][7] The revised OED takes it instead as formed within English from the verb sum and -ation, noting that the Latin word occurs only in isolated 9th- and 14th-century records, and compares Middle French sommacion and French sommation, used for a sum or calculation from the late 15th century and for a summing-up from 1601; its first English use, in 1608, translates the French word.^[8] The Shorter Oxford likewise derives it from the noun sum and -ation.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A summing-up of the main points of something: 1608, in E. Grimeston's translation of J. F. Le Petit's history of the Netherlands.^[8] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster date the word to 1760, in the mathematical sense of finding a sum.^[3][2][6]

Semantic evolution

The sense of a summary was rare before the 20th century;^[8] Etymonline and Barnhart date "a summing up" from 1836, in Bulwer-Lytton's Athens.^[2][3] The mathematical use began with the summing of infinite series (1742), widened to any calculation of an abstract amount (1753), and then to the plain adding up of numbers (1781).^[8] Carlyle used it in 1841 for a culmination or final outcome.^[8] From 1848 it named a counsel's or judge's closing speech summing up a case for the jury,^[8] a sense the American Heritage Dictionary gives as a concluding argument in a trial.^[4] Science added the combined effect of stimuli on a nerve or muscle (1871), a psychological sense modelled on German Summierung in Freud (1920), and the combination of signals in electronics (1921).^[8]

Timeline

• 1608 – a summary of the main points.^[8]
• 1742 – in mathematics, finding the sum of an infinite series.^[8] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster date the mathematical sense to 1760.^[3][2][6]
• 1753 – the calculation of an abstract amount (now rare).^[8]
• 1781 – the adding up of numbers or quantities.^[8]
• 1841 – a culmination or final outcome.^[8]
• 1848 – a counsel's or judge's closing speech summing up a case.^[8]
• 1871 – in physiology, the combined effect of stimuli on a nerve or muscle.^[8]
• 1920 – in psychology, the cumulative effect of a repeated stimulus.^[8]
• 1921 – in electronics, the combination of signals.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of adding up; addition.^[4][6][8]
2. A sum or aggregate; a total.^[4][6]
3. A concluding argument in a trial, in which a lawyer sums up a case for the judge or jury: The defense began its summation after lunch.^[4][8]
4. A summing-up; a summary.^[6][8]
5. (physiology) The process by which several stimuli, each too weak alone, together produce a response in a nerve or muscle.^[4][6][8]
6. (electronics) The combination of two or more signals by superposition.^[8]

Word family

• summational

Related words

• sum
• summate
• summary

Usage notes

The OED and the Shorter Oxford record an obsolete homonym summation, a summons, borrowed from Middle French somacion and used from about 1473, in Caxton, to 1864, though rare after the late 15th century.^[8][9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press