vicissitude

Etymology

It is borrowed from French vicissitude, recorded in Old French from the 14th century,^[2][3] or directly borrowed from Latin vicissitūdō (“change, interchange, alternation”);^[2][4][5] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged name Middle French as the source.^[6][7] The noun is formed from vicissim (“by turns, in turn”) and the suffix -tūdō,^[7][6] and the adverb comes from vicis (“a turn, change, alternation”).^[3][6][7][8] The American Heritage Dictionary takes this to be probably the plural vicēs of *vix,^[9] while Dictionary.com suggests that the adverb is perhaps a shortening of *vice-cessim, from vice (“in the place of”) and cessim (“giving way”).^[10] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary trace the Latin to Proto-Indo-European *weik- (“to bend, to wind”).^[3][9] The word shares its Latin base with vicar and vicarious.^[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Reciprocation or return: the OED's first record is a testimonial of 1565, and the sense did not last.^[2][11] Other dictionaries date the word differently: Etymonline to the mid-15th century,^[3] Dictionary.com to 1560–70,^[10] and Barnhart to 1570–76.^[6] MWU's first date, about 1576, is for the sense of natural change.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The earlier English uses are about alternation and change as such, close to the Latin: change as a process in things,^[2][5] and the regular succession of opposites, as in Milton's Grateful vicissitude, like day and night, which Johnson (1755) quotes under the sense "regular change".^[12][2] From the 1630s the word could name a single change, especially in a person's condition or fortune.^[2][3][5] That is the living sense today, usually for a change that affects a life in a trying way,^[9][13] and the sense of alternation between contrasting things is now archaic or literary.^[11][13]

Timeline

• 1565 – reciprocation, return (rare, now obsolete).^[2]
• 1576 – the fact of change taking place in a particular thing or sphere.^[2]
• 1603 – change as a natural process in things or in life generally.^[2]
• 1605 – a turn or occasion of action (rare, now obsolete).^[2]
• 1624 – alternation, especially the succession of opposite or contrasted things.^[2]
• 1631 – a change in condition or fortune.^[2] Etymonline dates the sense of a single change to the 1640s.^[3]
• 1648 – a change from one physical state to another, one of a constant series.^[2]
• 1749 – by vicissitudes, by turns (now obsolete).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A change of circumstances or fortune, often for the worse, and usually in the plural: the vicissitudes of a farmer's year.^{[13][7][9][14]}
2. Changeability; the tendency to change in nature or in life: the vicissitude of the seasons.^[9][14][2]
3. (archaic) Regular alternation; a repeated succession of opposites.^[11][13][2]
4. (obsolete, 1565) Reciprocation, return.^[2][11]

Word family

• vicissitudinous
• vicissitudinary

Related words

• vice versa
• vicar
• vicarious
• vice-
• week

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins