At first a legal word meaning "sufficient estate" (to satisfy debts and legacies), it passed into a general sense of "property," especially "any property that theoretically can be converted to ready money" by 1580s. Figurative use from 1670s. Asset is a 19c. artificial singular. Corporate asset stripping is attested from 1972.
It forms all or part of: assets; hadron; sad; sate; satiate; satiety; satisfy; satire; saturate; saturation.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit a-sinvan "insatiable;" Greek hadros "thick, bulky;" Latin satis "enough, sufficient;" Old Church Slavonic sytu, Lithuanian sotus "satiated;" Old Irish saith "satiety," sathach "sated;" Old English sæd "sated, full, having had one's fill, weary of."
1860, "act of converting (assets) to capital," noun of action from capitalize in the financial sense. Meaning "act of writing or printing in capital letters" is recorded from 1847, from the writing sense.
1570s, in law, of debts, noun of action from past-participle stem of Late Latin liquidare "melt, make liquid" (see liquidate). Originally as a legal term in reference to assets; of companies going out of business, 1869; of inconvenient groups of persons, "a killing, a wiping out," 1925 in communist writings. In O. Henry, "the act of taking a drink of liquor."
For the unetymological e-, see e-. Sense of "property" is late 14c., from that of "worldly prosperity;" specific application to "landed property" (usually of large extent) is first recorded in American English 1620s. A native word for this was Middle English ethel (Old English æðel) "ancestral land or estate, patrimony." Meaning "collective assets of a dead person or debtor" is from 1830.
The three estates (in Sweden and Aragon, four) conceived as orders in the body politic date from late 14c. In France, they are the clergy, nobles, and townsmen; in England, originally the clergy, barons, and commons, later Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal, and commons. For Fourth Estate see four.
Of weather, "be cold enough to freeze," 13c. Meaning "perish from cold" is c. 1300. Transitive sense "harden into ice, congeal as if by frost" first recorded late 14c.; figurative sense late 14c., "make hard or unfeeling." Intransitive meaning "become rigid or motionless" attested by 1720. Sense of "fix at a certain level" is from 1933; of assets, "make non-transactable," from 1922. Freeze frame is from 1960, originally "a briefly Frozen Shot after the Jingle to allow ample time for Change over at the end of a T.V. 'Commercial.' " ["ABC of Film & TV," 1960].
early 14c., equite, "quality of being equal or fair, impartiality;" late 14c., "that which is equally right or just to all concerned," from Old French equite (13c.), from Latin aequitatem (nominative aequitas) "the uniform relation of one thing to others, equality, conformity, symmetry;" also "just or equitable conduct toward others," from aequus "even, just, equal" (see equal (adj.)).
In law, "fairness in the adjustment of conflicting interests; the settlement of controversies by the dictates of good conscience" (natural equity), late 14c., from Roman naturalis aequitas, the general principles of justice which corrected or supplemented the legal codes ("governed by benevolence, while justitia yields to another only what is strictly due," Lewis & Short).
Hence, in England and U.S., also "justice based on such principles, the system of jurisprudence as to what is fair and what is not," and "a court or jurisdiction in which these doctrines are applied" (1590s).
The Latin word also meant "a quiet, tranquil state of mind; moderation, evenness of temper."
The L. æquitas was somewhat influenced in meaning by being adopted as the ordinary rendering of Gr. ἐπιεικεια ...,which meant reasonableness and moderation in the exercise of one's rights, and the disposition to avoid insisting on them too rigorously. [OED]
From 1620s as "an equitable right, that to which one is justly entitled," especially a right recognized by courts of equity that is not provided for in the common or statute law (such as certain property rights of wives). Equities, "the ordinary shares of a limited company," carrying certain rights to assets and profits, is attested by 1904.
By 1980s it had taken on extended senses in sociology, e.g.: "allocating benefits in various policy fields in such a way as to provide groups, persons, and places with at least a minimum level of benefits so as to satisfy basic needs" [Stuart S. Nagel, "Equity as a Policy Goal," 1983].
