tacit

Etymology

It is borrowed from French tacite and directly borrowed from Latin tacitus (“passed over in silence, done without words, assumed, silent”),^[2][3][4] the past participle of taceō (“to be silent”).^[5][6][7][8] The OED gives only the Latin source and compares the French word, which Hatzfeld and Darmesteter record from the 14th century.^[5] The Latin verb is cognate with Gothic 𐌸𐌰𐌷𐌰𐌽 (þahan, “to be silent”), Old Norse þegja, Old Saxon thagian and Old High German dagēn, all meaning "to be silent",^[3][4][2] from Proto-Germanic *þagēn.^[9][10] Kroonen describes the Germanic verb as an old stative formation identical to the Latin one, and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *tHk-éh₁- for both;^[9] Barnhart and Etymonline cite the root as Proto-Indo-European *tak- (“to be silent”).^[3][2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged adds a possible link with Welsh tagu (“to choke”) and Old Irish tachtaid (“he chokes”).^[4] From the same Latin verb come taciturn and reticent.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Saying nothing, silent: 1604, in Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, the first English dictionary of hard words.^[5][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates its first sense to 1576,^[4] Etymonline gives about 1600,^[2] and Dictionary.com 1595–1605.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The word first described something done or kept in silence: a person saying nothing (1604) or something unspoken and wordless (1605, in Bacon).^[5] From there it moved to what is understood without being said: the sense "implied, not openly stated" is recorded from 1637–50, in John Row's history of the Church of Scotland.^[5][3] Etymonline dates it to the 1630s.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "Silent; implied; not expressed by words", quoting Bacon on a "natural and tacit confederation amongst all men" against pirates.^[13] The implied sense is now the main one, while "saying nothing" is rare or archaic.^[7][4] In law it was used of rights created by the operation of law rather than by an express agreement, as in tacit mortgage, a lien that arises without a written deed.^[5][14]

Timeline

• 1604 – saying nothing; still, silent.^[5][3]
• 1605 – unspoken, wordless, making no sound.^[5]
• 1637–50 – implied or understood without being openly stated.^[5][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Understood or implied without being stated openly: a tacit understanding between the neighbours.^[14][4][5]
2. Expressed or carried on without words; unspoken: Her nod was a tacit reply.^[4][5]
3. (law) Arising by the operation of law rather than by express statement.^[14][5]
4. (archaic) Not speaking; silent.^[4][7][5]

Word family

• tacitly
• tacitness

Related words

• tacet
• taciturn
• taciturnity
• reticent

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 f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins