unification

Etymology

It is formed from English unify + -fication,^[2][3][4] on the model of pairs such as identify and identification^[5] or mollify and mollification.^[6] The OED also allows a borrowing from French unification or Italian unificazione,^[7] and Barnhart takes it as partly from the French word.^[6] Unify (1502) is from Old French unifier or directly from Late Latin ūnificō (“to make one”),^[6][7][8][4] formed from Latin ūnus (“one”) and -ficō, the combining form of faciō (“to make”).^[4][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action or process of uniting things into one, or of reducing them to a single system: 1848, in Italy, Past and Present, by a writer using the name Mariotti.^[7][11] Etymonline dates the noun to 1849,^[4] and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster to 1851.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

The noun appeared in the mid-19th century, more than three centuries after the verb unify, which is recorded from 1502 and in the intransitive sense "to become one" from 1817.^[7][4] The Historical Thesaurus files it both under the politics of federalism and union and under the general idea of uniting or being united.^[11] In organ building, unification is the use of one set of pipes to supply two or more stops at different pitches on the same manual.^[5] The Unification Church, a religious and political organization, was founded in Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon.^[4][2]

Timeline

• 1502 – the verb unify, to make into one.^[7]
• 1848 – the action or process of unifying; the result of this.^[7][11] Merriam-Webster dates the noun to 1851.^[5]
• 1954 – Unification Church, founded in Korea.^[4][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of uniting things or people into one whole: The unification of the two railway companies took ten years.^[12][5][7]
2. The state of being unified.^[12][5][2]
3. In a pipe organ, the use of one set of pipes to give two or more stops at different pitches on the same manual.^[5]

Word family

• preunification
• reunification

Related words

• union
• unity
• unify
• unite

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins