vicinity

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vīcīnitās (“neighbourhood, nearness”),^[2][3][4][5] partly through vicinité according to Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster.^[6][7][8] The Latin noun is formed on vīcīnus (“neighbouring; a neighbour”), from vīcus (“group of houses, village”),^[6][9][10] which is related to wick, an element of place names in England.^[6][10][11] It goes back to the root Proto-Indo-European *weik- (“clan, settlement”),^[6][9] and Barnhart's full edition lists Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos, “house”) among its cognates.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nearness in space: 1560, in J. Daus's translation of J. Sleidane's Commentaries.^[2][8][7] Etymonline dates the word to the 1550s^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1550–60.^[12]

Semantic evolution

From 1594 to 1676 vicinity could also mean nearness in kind, a close relationship or resemblance, a sense now obsolete.^[2][5] Johnson (1755) gave two senses, "nearness" and "neighbourhood".^[13] The concrete sense, the surrounding district, is found in Thomas Jefferson's correspondence in 1781,^[2] and the phrase in the vicinity of is found in 1796;^[2][6] by 1817 the phrase could refer to a number or amount near a given figure.^[2]

Timeline

• 1560 – nearness in space;^[2][8] the 1550s in Etymonline.^[6]
• 1594 – nearness in kind, resemblance (until 1676).^[2]
• 1781 – a neighbourhood or surrounding district.^[2]
• 1796 – in the vicinity of.^[2][6]
• 1817 – approximately (of an amount).^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The surrounding or nearby area; the neighbourhood: No shops are open in the vicinity after nine.
2. The state of being near; proximity.
3. Near to, or (of an amount) about, in the phrase in the vicinity of: The repairs will cost in the vicinity of a thousand pounds.

Related words

• vicinage
• vicinal

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. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
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.