English
delight
Delight comes from Latin dēlectāre ‘to delight, please’, from dēlicere ‘to allure, entice’, and ultimately from Proto-Italic *lakjō ‘to draw, pull’.
- Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*lakjō‘to draw, pull’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElaciō‘to lure, to deceive’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEdēlicere‘to allure, entice’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEdēlectāre‘to delight, please’frequentative of dēlicere
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400deleiter
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500delite
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1515–1516delight
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*lakjō‘to draw, pull’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElaciō‘to lure, to deceive’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEdēlicere‘to allure, entice’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEdēlectāre‘to delight, please’frequentative of dēlicere
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400deleiter
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500delite
- Englishearliest quotation c. 1515–1516delight
Earliest quotation: c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton: “A ſclaunderous tunge, a tunge of a ſkolde, Worketh…”
The story
Attested from the 13th century, from Middle English delite, from Old French deleiter, deliter, from Latin dēlectāre (‘to delight, please’), frequentative of dēlicere (‘to allure, entice’), from dē- (‘away’) + laciō (‘to lure, to deceive’), from Proto-Italic *lakjō (‘to draw, pull’), of unknown ultimate origin.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. Related with delectation, delicate, delicious and dilettante. The modern unetymological spelling (instead of expected delite) is influenced by light and other words ending in -ight, such as might, bright, etc. The -gh- may also be an attempt to represent the Latin -c-; compare obsolete indight for indict.
Linked words
through Latin laciō ‘to lure, to deceive’
through Latin dēlicere ‘to allure, entice’
Today it means
noun Joy; pleasure.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Proto-Italic *lakjō / delight