Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.
a syllable occurring in many nouns of Latin origin, formed when the word-forming element -ion (from Latin -ionem, -io) is fixed to a base or to another suffix ending in -t or -te.
In Latin, after radical -s- the -tion is regularly -sion (compare mission, passion). In Middle English, in words via Old French, it often was -cion, later regularized to -tion (in coercion and suspicion, however, the -c- belongs to the base).
Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.
originally enshitification, "deliberate worsening of a service or product, usually for the owner's financial gain," 2022, coined by British-Canadian tech writer Cory Doctorow (b. 1971), originally to describe telemetry policies of apps. The later appearance of the double T is perhaps on the model of emit/emitted, regret/regretted, etc. Probably based on adjectival uses of shit as a mark of quality, or lack thereof (e.g. "That's a bit shit.") + Latinate en- prefix (compare encyst) and suffixes -ify + -ic + -ate + -tion, (compare nullification.) Doctorow also coined the verbal form enshittify.
Earlier shittification was an intensified interjectional form of shit, by 2009, perhaps on model of damn/damnation.
1778, "extreme suffering from hunger," hybrid noun of action from starve; see -tion. Famously (but not certainly) introduced into English by Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, during debate in the House of Commons in 1775 on American affairs. The remark earned him the nickname "Starvation Dundas," though sources disagree on whether this was to fix his name shamefully to the harsh suggestion of starving the rebels into submission, or in derision at the barbarous formation of the word.
It is noted as one of the earliest instances of -ation used with a native Germanic word (flirtation is earlier), based on a false analogy with vex/vexation, etc.
As to Lord Chatham, the victories, conquests, extension of our empire within these last five years, will annihilate his fame of course, and he may be replaced by Starvation Dundas, whose pious policy suggested that the devil of rebellion could be expelled only by fasting, though that never drove him out of Scotland. [Horace Walpole, letter to the Rev. William Mason, April 25, 1781]
The general sense of "deprivation of any element essential to nutrition or health," often figurative, is by 1866. In common with starve (v.) it also was used occasionally with reference to suffering from exposure to cold.
early 15c., cohercioun, "compulsion, forcible constraint," from Old French cohercion (Modern French coercion), from Medieval Latin coercionem, from Latin coerctionem, earlier coercitionem, noun of action from past-participle stem of coercere "to control, restrain" (see coerce).
It defies the usual pattern where Middle English -cion reverts to Latin type and becomes -tion. Specific sense in reference to government by force, ostensibly to suppress disorder, emerged from 19c. British policies in Ireland. "As the word has had, in later times, a bad flavour, suggesting the application of force as a remedy, or its employment against the general sense of the community, it is now usually avoided by those who approve of the action in question" [OED].
1610s, "small piece of paper with writing on it, a written slip," apparently a corruption of script (n.). In the commercial use, "a certificate of a right to receive something" (especially a stock share), 1762, in this sense probably shortened from (sub)scrip(tion) receipt (see subscription). Originally "receipt for a portion of a loan subscribed;" the meaning "certificate issued as currency" is recorded by 1790. In U.S. history, "fractional paper money" (by 1889).
It had been justly stated by a British writer that the power to make a small piece of paper, not worth one cent, by the inscribing of a few names, to be worth a thousand dollars, was a power too high to be entrusted to the hands of mortal man. [John C. Calhoun, speech, U.S. Senate, Dec. 29, 1841]
Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.
Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.
Want to remove ads? Log in to see fewer ads, and become a Premium Member to remove all ads.