English
desiccation
Desiccation comes from Latin desicco ‘to dry up, drain dry, desiccate’, and goes back to siccus.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccus‘dry’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccō‘dry up’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEdesicco‘to dry up, drain dry, desiccate’
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEdesiccatio
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600dessiccation
- Englishearliest quotation 1968desiccation
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccus‘dry’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsiccō‘dry up’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEdesicco‘to dry up, drain dry, desiccate’
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEdesiccatio
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600dessiccation
- Englishearliest quotation 1968desiccation
Earliest quotation: 1968, M.W. Service, The Ecology of the Immature Stages of Aedes detritus: “The most important mortality affecting the larval population was…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *sek- ‘to cut, cut off, sever’
saw, sex, risk, ship, sign, sexual, section, seal, segment, insect, sawyer, scarlet, sax, het, shingle, dissect, sickle, scythe, seg, sedge, sich, sigil, sain, brassica, 64 more
through Latin siccus ‘dry’
Today it means
noun The state or process of being desiccated.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin siccus / desiccation