A decent doxology
Last week my loving wife asked about the source of the word doxology. Before getting to my trusty
dictionary, the in-brain-search yielded possible connections to paradox
& heterodox. But the in-brain-search would never have come up
with a connection to the word decent. And that’s one of the things
I find intriguing about etymologies. So often, a good word history includes a
surprise.
Doxology showed up in English in the 1640s,
meaning a hymn of praise. The first bit of the word came from
the Greek word doxa, meaning glory,
praise, or opinion. Doxa is a
later form of the Greek word dokein, meaning to appear, seem, or think. It’s plausible that the think element of dokein grew to mean opinion. I’d love to know the
circumstances that caused an association between opinion & praise or glory.
A heterodox is something not
in accordance with established doctrine, which makes perfect sense, since
its two word parts add up to mean the
other opinion. Heterodox came to
English in the 1630s.
The word paradox arrived in English in the
1530s. In this case, para- meant contrary, so a paradox is something contrary to what one might expect.
A word that should have popped up in my in-brain-search is orthodox,
which came from the Greek word orthodoxos, which originally meant, having the right opinion. Since ortho-
means right, true, or straight, this
original meaning shouldn’t surprise us. Today, the word orthodox is most often
used to mean traditional.
All the doxa-related words above came
through Greek from the Proto-Indo-European root dek, meaning to greet or be suitable. But when the
Latin-speakers got hold of dek, it became decere, to be fitting or suitable. This Latin
word gave birth in the 1530s to the English word decent, which initially meant proper to one’s rank or station, then
went on to add these meanings:
By 1600, good taste;
By 1712, satisfying;
About that same time, tolerable;
By 1902, kind or pleasant;
&
By 1949 the backstage question “Are you decent?” came to mean
“Are you dressed?”
And from the “what is the world coming to?” department, the
Oxford English Dictionary recognizes the 1814 birth of the word decentish.
Who knew?
If you’ve got any comments regarding decency or doxa,
please do so in the comments section.
It is ironic that the suffix "dox" which has always meant praise and/or truth, now is used in Internet circles to mean put someone's personal information online and urge people to harass them. I think the verb "to dox" probably comes from "documents" shortened to "docs" and is misspelled to be cute. People originally "doxed" trolls, to destroy their anonymity, but now they do it to reviewers or other people they want "punished" by the mob. More at the Urban Dictionary. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=doxing
ReplyDeleteFascinating stuff! Especially since doxa also meant opinion.
ReplyDelete