Sunday, March 29, 2009

Opposition

Opposition comes from the classical Latin opposit- meaning to set against and then is seen in Greek in the context of opposition of two celestial objects, but it actually came in from French, according to the OED. Today it has the definition of, "Senses relating to physical position." 

I thought that the word opposition with the meaning that is has, had to have had an interesting journey into English as it relates not only with physical position, but also conflict, which is why I chose this word. 
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1 comment:

  1. RRApril 12, 2009 at 10:21 PM

    I'm afraid that your opening paragraph isn't reflecting the etymological information in the OED very accurately. As you mention, the word comes to us from Latin, via French, and is derived from op (against) = posit (perfect passive participle of put/place/set). It's not actually found in Greek, though; the OED mentions that it's used as the Latin equivalent of Greek antithesis in a variety of contexts.

    And be careful: its meaning isn't "senses relating to physical position": that's just the heading for a bundle of different definitions given by the OED.

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