English
attraction
Attraction comes from Latin attrahō ‘to draw, pull or drag to or towards with force’, and goes back to trahō.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtrahō‘to drag, pull’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEattrahō‘to draw, pull or drag to or towards with force’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEattractiō
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400attraction
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500attraccioun
- Englishearliest quotation 1913attraction
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtrahō‘to drag, pull’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEattrahō‘to draw, pull or drag to or towards with force’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEattractiō
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400attraction
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500attraccioun
- Englishearliest quotation 1913attraction
Earliest quotation: 1913, Joseph Crosby Lincoln, New York: “When you're well enough off so's you don't have…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *dʰregʰ- ‘to run, to drag, to pull’
draw, train, draft, drag, retreat, draught, distraction, extraction, contraction, abstraction, retract, subtraction, entreat, abstractly, 49 more
through Latin trahō ‘to drag, pull’
treat, contract, portrait, abstract, extract, trait, tractor, distract, tram, tract, trattoria, 37 more
Today it means
noun The tendency to attract.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin trahō / attraction