What did the word "leisure" mean in late 18th Century usage?
Upvote:5
The etymology of the word leisure traces it back to "license," permission to do something. In the context of a mine, it would mean permission to extract the ore.
Later, the connotation of the term changed to "take it easy," or permission to not do anything.The source opines that it may have developed in tandem with, or along the lines of, "pleasure," including becoming a rhyme (in British English).
Upvote:10
Although marked as obsolete in the O.E.D. (1928), this oldest meaning for the word leisure is attested as late as 1640:
Leisure:
a. Freedom or opportunity to do something specified or implied
b. opportunity
More post
- 📝 What role did Jews play in the Punic Wars?
- 📝 Did Germans refuse to take Cossacks prisoners in WWI? If so, why?
- 📝 How many of Japan's 29 lost Pearl Harbor aircraft have been accounted for?
- 📝 What was the nature and extent of forced or coerced sterilization in Puerto Rico from the 1940s-1970s?
- 📝 Has there ever been an archbishop or bishop younger than the 16-year-old James of Nicosia?
- 📝 Were the Assyrians and the Akkadians different people or the same people under a different name?
- 📝 What are some examples of nations that involuntarily gained independence?
- 📝 Egyptian funeral procession: what are these people doing / holding?
- 📝 Pigs in ancient Israel
- 📝 Have governments or combatants marked the houses of groups to be persecuted?
- 📝 During the Korean War, what B-29 crew roles did the abbreviations IVO, CFC, and VC mean?
- 📝 What was the third best-selling book in the antebellum US?
- 📝 What were the largest European treasuries, in gold and silver, at the end of the Seven Years War?
- 📝 Who was in charge of the Barysaw massacre (20 October 1941)?
- 📝 Where to find birth records for those born in Ireland pre-Independence?
- 📝 Japan allying with Germany in WWII
- 📝 What would the style of wanted posters be in 1500's
- 📝 When did the US invite Iraqi scientists to study nuclear technology/science?
- 📝 Why was Schuyler Colfax not present at the vote to reconsider the 13th amendment?
- 📝 What were the influences of Freemasonry in the wars of liberation of Latino American countries from Spanish Colonialism?
- 📝 What buildings could be found in the inner ward of a castle?
- 📝 When did home weather thermometers become popular/common?
- 📝 Need help interpreting "silver" hallmark - 1706?
- 📝 Did anyone at the time blame the Great Plague on rats or fleas?
- 📝 How were British personnel employed in the colonies after independence
- 📝 What ship is this and which military campaign?
- 📝 Is the Tokugawa escape scene in Clavell's "Shogun" historically accurate?
- 📝 Have Germany and Poland ever signed a peace treaty after WWII?
- 📝 How public was sex in 1800s America?
- 📝 Why, in the Bill of Rights, is the right to a speedy trial a separate amendment from the right to a trial by jury?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What did the word "leisure" mean in late 18th Century usage?
- 📝 What did the top minds of the late 17th century have to say about Salem witch trials?
- 📝 In what ways did the rise of a true middle class in Europe during the late 19th century become apparent?
- 📝 What did the word 'unconstitutional' mean to Americans prior to the Revolution?
- 📝 What was the typical range of travel of a Pennsylvanian resident for everyday life in the late 18th early 19th Century Pennsylvania?
- 📝 What did "opening day" mean in the 18th century?
- 📝 What did "Dr." after a person's or a business's name mean around the turn of the 20th century in the USA?
- 📝 What did the word "fascist" mean in an early 1930's novel set in Italy?
- 📝 Why did piracy thrive in the late 17th and early 18th centuries?
- 📝 What did Hitler mean with the following statement about Franco?
- 📝 What did it mean to be a Grecian in late-18th Century British schools?
- 📝 What did European people of the 5th century AD eat during spring and what was the availability?
- 📝 What did Ben Franklin mean when he said "The sun of liberty is set; you must light up the candle of industry & economy"?
- 📝 What exactly were the dealings of Ea-Nasir ("The Worst Businessman Of The 18th Century BC")?
- 📝 What types of weapons did the British army use in the late 1890's?
- 📝 Where and how did scientists of the 18th and 19th century learn foreign languages?
- 📝 What is a "Johnsonian world of clubs and coffee houses" in the context of 18th century England?
- 📝 What uniform is the man in this mid to late 19th century photo wearing?
- 📝 What did Central America export in the early 20th century other than coffee and bananas?
- 📝 What was the average age of first marriage in 18th century Russia?
- 📝 What did it mean to be a "Jacobite" at the turn of the 20th Century?
- 📝 What did the British Empire mean by "Free Trade" in reference to the colonies?
- 📝 Usage of "native American" in the 18th Century
- 📝 What was the available level of agricultural technology in late 2nd century China?
- 📝 What role did the United States government and major corporations have in controlling dissent and protest starting in the late 1940s?
- 📝 Ports with ships in the commercial Halifax trade, late 18th Century
- 📝 What did the term "Parage" mean in middle ages Langued'oc?
- 📝 Why did Europeans call Native Americans Indians in the 18th Century AD, After they had found out they were in the wrong continent?
- 📝 In the Nuremberg Laws, What did "Approved for Citizenship" is half Jewish mean in practice?
- 📝 What did Joe Slovo mean by 'collusion' in The War Against Aparthied?