Etymologically
Log in

validity

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 18:37. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /vəˈlɪd.ɪ.ti/, /vəˈlɪd.ə.ti/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin validitās (“strength”),[2][3] or, according to Klein, borrowed from Middle French validité;[4] Etymonline, the Shorter Oxford and Merriam-Webster allow either source.[5][6][7] The noun is formed from Latin validus (“strong, effective, powerful”) with the suffix -itās,[2][3][7] and validus comes from valeō (“to be strong”), from Proto-Indo-European *wal- (“to be strong”).[5][8] The OED compares Italian validità, and dates the French word to the 16th century.[2] It is related to valid, recorded in English from the 1570s.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Legal force or authority: the OED's first quotation is from a life of Bishop Fisher written between about 1553 and 1577;[2] the first edition dated it c. 1550,[9] and Etymonline and Dictionary.com put the word in the 1540s.[5][3]

Semantic evolution

In the late 16th century the word took several senses close to the Latin "strength": physical strength or soundness (1578–1750), in the plural valid powers or capacities (1586–1607), value or worth (from 1593) and physical value or capacity (1607, rare).[2] The sense of an argument's soundness, its being well founded on facts or principles, appeared in the phrase of validity in 1581 and in general use in 1588, in Fraunce's Lawiers Logike.[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "force to convince; certainty", and marked the sense "value", quoted from King Lear, as no longer used.[10] In modern use the word is also applied to measurements, for how well a measure reflects what it is meant to measure, and in theology to whether a sacrament is genuine.[1]

Timeline

  • 1540s – Etymonline's and Dictionary.com's date.[5][3]
  • ?1553 – legal force or authority.[2]
  • 1578 – physical strength (obsolete by 1750).[2]
  • 1581 – soundness, in the phrase of validity; in general use from 1588.[2]
  • 1586 – plural, valid powers (obsolete by 1607).[2]
  • 1593 – value, worth; efficacy.[2]
  • 1755 – Johnson: "force to convince; certainty".[10]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The state of having legal force or authority: The court questioned the validity of the will.
  2. The quality of being well founded on facts or sound reasoning; soundness: the validity of her argument.
  3. The state of being valid for use for a set time, as of a ticket or pass.
  4. (statistics, psychology) The degree to which a measurement reflects what it is meant to measure.
  5. (theology) The genuineness of a sacrament, as distinct from its effectiveness or regularity.
  6. (archaic) Value, worth.

Word family

  • nonvalidity

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.