Where does “obedience” come from?
Obedience derives from Old French obedience, from Latin oboedientia (a noun formation in -ia), ultimately from Latin audio meaning "to hear," tracing back to Proto-Indo-European dʰeh₁-.
obedience (English): The quality of being obedient; The collective...
Definitions
- The quality of being obedient; The collective...
Ancestry of “obedience”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Old French | obedience | obedience; authority; influence; power |
| 2 | Latin | oboedientia | obedience; nominative neuter plural of oboediēns;... |
| 3 | Latin | oboediēns | obeying, obedient |
| 4 | Latin | oboedio | to obey, yield obedience to; to be subject to, to... |
| 5 | Latin | ob- | towards; against |
| 6 | Latin | obolus | obolus (Greek coin) |
| 7 | Ancient Greek | ὀβολός | obol, obolus, used at Athens as both a weight and... |
| 8 | Ancient Greek | ὀβελός | a spit, rod; a horizontal line |
| 9 | Ancient Greek | βέλος | missile, arrow, dart; weapon; something quickly... |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | gʷélHos | — |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | gʷelH- | to throw, reach, pierce; to hit by throwing |