Etymograph

English

deform

Deform comes from Middle French deforme.

  1. Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600deforme
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500same form‘out of shape, deformed’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1590deform

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600deforme
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500same form‘out of shape, deformed’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1590deform

Earliest quotation: 1590, Edmund Spenser, Book I, Canto XII: “[…] I did proclame, / That vvho ſo kild…”

The story

From Middle English deforme (‘out of shape, deformed’) [and other forms], from Middle French deforme (modern French difforme (‘misshapen, deformed’)), or directly from its etymon Latin dēfōrmis (‘departing physically from the correct shape, deformed, malformed, misshapen, ugly; (figuratively) departing morally from the correct quality, base, disgraceful, shameful, unbecoming’), from dē- (prefix meaning ‘away from; from’) + fōrma (‘form, appearance, figure, shape; fine form, beauty; design, outline, plan; model, pattern; mould, stamp; (figuratively) kind, manner, sort’) (further etymology unknown; perhaps related to Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “form, shape; appearance; outline; kind, type”), probably from Pre-Greek, but there is no consensus) + -is (suffix forming adjectives of the third declension).

Every English word from Middle French deforme

Another origin of deform

  1. Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEμορφή‘shape, form’uncertain
  2. Etruscanmodern*mormauncertain
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfōrma‘form’
  4. Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfōrmō‘to shape, form, fashion, format’
  5. Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEdēfōrmō‘to form, fashion’
  6. Old Frenchc. 842–1400desformer
  7. Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600deformer
  8. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500deformen‘to disfigure, distort, or mar’
  9. Englishtodaydeform

From Middle English deformen (‘to disfigure, distort, or mar; (figuratively) to disfigure morally; to defame; to dishonour’) [and other forms], equivalent to de- + form, from Old French deformer [and other forms] (modern French déformer (‘to contort, distort, twist out of shape; (figuratively) to pervert’)), or directly from its etymon Latin dēfōrmāre (whence Medieval Latin difformāre), the present active infinitive of dēfōrmō (‘to fashion, form; to delineate, describe; to design; to deform, disfigure; to mar, spoil’), from dē- (prefix meaning ‘away from; from’) + fōrmō (‘to fashion, form, shape; to format’) (from fōrma (noun); see further at etymology 1).

Today it means

adj Having an unusual and unattractive shape; deformed, misshapen; hence, hideous, ugly.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Middle French deforme / deform

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