Sharing Roots or Not?

As I was reading Advise and Consent this week I came across the word depredation, which reminded me of the words deprecation and  degradation, and made me wonder if the two have the same root. As I looked at my list of words covered to make sure I had not already written about one or the other I was reminded of a word from a previous post that should have been mentioned in one of my posts on abs, abjure. I came across it at the end of January while reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. Does it have the same root as adjure?

It turns out that all three words have different roots. Degradation is pretty straightforward, and means the act of degrading, or lowering in dignity or estimation, in character or quality. Degrade came to English earlier than degradation, in the late 1300s versus the 1530s. Degrade came from the Old French word degrader, which meant to deprive someone of their rank or office. They got it from desgradus, a Latin word that meant a step down (gradus + des-). The French word dégradation came from the Medieval Latin word degradationem, a form of degradus. So degradation can be remembered as tantamount to the old Western movie image of someone “losing their stripes” and being demoted to a lower grade of soldier.

Depredation, or the act of preying upon someone or plundering a place, came to English in the late 15^th century, also from the Middle French. Their word depredation came from the Late Latin word deprædationem, which is Latin for thoroughly plundering. (Plundering is prædari, and the prefix de- indicates totality.) There is a verb form of the word, depredate, but it is not used nearly as much as the verb form depredation.

Abjure and adjure, on the other hand, have the same root word. It is the Latin word for taking an oath, iurare.

In the case of abjure, the prefixed ab- is Latin for “away”, so abjure is taking away your oath or retracting it. It came to English in the early 1400s from the Middle French word abjurer, although it is possible it came directly from the Latin word abiurare, which means “deny on oath.”

The prefix ad-, when affixed to iurare, changes the meaning from simply an oath to the act of confirming by an oath, or to swear to in addition to stating. In Late Latin adiurare meant to put someone to or under an oath.  Adjure was first used in English in the late 1300s, or slightly before abjure. It was not until people were put under oath that they could retract the oath they had taken.

And that word iurare is the source of a number of words, which you will have to wait until next week to read about in this blog. I must be prudent and keep the blog post fairly short. But just to get you wondering, what does prudence have to do with iurare?