tenet

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin tenet (“he holds”), the third person singular present of teneō (“to hold”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).^[3][7][5] It probably comes from learned Latin writing, where the verb introduced the opinion or doctrine that a person or sect held: Barnhart, the American Heritage Dictionary and Etymonline say Medieval Latin,^[4][5][3] the OED and Merriam-Webster modern Latin.^[2][8] Weekley thought of it as the first word of dissertations.^[9] The OED compares habitat, incipit and explicit.^[2] It replaced an earlier noun borrowed in the same way from the plural, tenent (“they hold”).^{[10][11][2][9]}

Earliest recorded meaning

A doctrine or principle: 1413 in Barnhart, and the early 15th century in Etymonline.^[4][3] Other dictionaries date it far later: the late 16th century in the Shorter Oxford, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Dictionary.com,^[10][11][12] about 1600 in Merriam-Webster,^[8] and before 1620 in the OED, whose first quotation is from Fotherby's Atheomastix.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word is properly "a thing held to be true".^[3][6] The form tenent, in use from before 1556 to 1722, ran alongside it: Sir Thomas Browne wrote of "received tenents" in Pseudodoxia Epidemica,^[2][9] and Johnson (1755), defining tenet as "position; principle; opinion", noted that it was sometimes written tenent.^[13] From 1631 it could also mean, more loosely, any opinion a person holds, beside the stricter use for the doctrines of a school, sect or party.^[2][10] The OED's first edition gave a second pronunciation with a long first vowel, and Merriam-Webster and the Shorter Oxford still list one.^[2][8][10]

Timeline

• 1413 – a doctrine or principle.^[4][14] The OED's first quotation is from before 1620.^[2]
• before 1556 – the form tenent, used until 1722.^[2]
• 1631 – more loosely, any opinion held.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A principle, doctrine or dogma held to be true, especially by a religious, political or philosophical group: Thrift is a central tenet of the family's faith.^[15][8][2]
2. More loosely, any opinion a person holds.^[2][10]

Related words

• tenant
• tenent
• tenable
• tenacious
• tenement
• tenor
• tenure
• contain
• maintain
• retain
• thin

Usage notes

Dictionary.com warns that people often say tenet with the pronunciation of the more common tenant, and the two should be kept apart.^[12] In west Somerset dialect tenet was a tenon, and a tenet-saw a tenon-saw.^[16]

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b 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. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)