Origin and history of dedication

1540s, "a word," a sense now obsolete, from Late Latin dictionem (nominative dictio) "a saying, expression; a word; kind of delivery, style," noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin dicere "to say, state, proclaim, make known, allege, declare positively" (source of French dire "to say"), which is related to dicare "to talk, speak, utter, make speech; pronounce, articulate," both from PIE root *deik- "to show," also "pronounce solemnly." The meaning "manner of saying," especially in reference to the choice of words, is from 1700.

Latin dicere and dicare are presumed to have been originally the same word. De Vann writes that "the verb dicāre may well have been backformed from compounds in -dicāre." The basic sense in both is "to talk, speak, declare." They seem to have divided, imperfectly, the secondary senses between them: dicere "to say, state, proclaim, make known, allege, declare positively; plead (a case);" in religion, "to dedicate, consecrate," hence, transferred from the religion sense, "give up, set apart, appropriate;" dicare "to talk, speak, utter, make speech; pronounce, articulate; to mean, intend; describe; to call, to name; appoint, set apart."

active word-forming element in English and in many verbs inherited from French and Latin, from Latin de "down, down from, from, off; concerning" (see de), also used as a prefix in Latin, usually meaning "down, off, away, from among, down from," but also "down to the bottom, totally" hence "completely" (intensive or completive), which is its sense in many English words.

As a Latin prefix it also had the function of undoing or reversing a verb's action, and hence it came to be used as a pure privative — "not, do the opposite of, undo" — which is its primary function as a living prefix in English, as in defrost (1895), defuse (1943), de-escalate (1964), etc. In some cases, a reduced form of dis-.

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to show," also "pronounce solemnly," "also in derivatives referring to the directing of words or objects" [Watkins].

It might form all or part of: abdicate; abdication; addict; adjudge; apodictic; avenge; benediction; betoken; condition; contradict; contradiction; dedicate; deictic; deixis; dictate; diction; dictionary; dictum; digit; disk; ditto; ditty; edict; Eurydice; index; indicate; indication; indict; indiction; indictive; indite; interdict; judge; judicial; juridical; jurisdiction; malediction; malison; paradigm; policy (n.2) "written insurance agreement;" preach; predicament; predicate; predict; prejudice; revenge; soi-disant; syndic; teach; tetchy; theodicy; toe; token; valediction; vendetta; verdict; veridical; vindicate; vindication; voir dire.

It might also be the source of: Sanskrit dic- "point out, show;" Greek deiknynai "to show, to prove," dikē "custom, usage;" Latin dicere "speak, tell, say," digitus "finger," Old High German zeigon, German zeigen "to show," Old English teon "to accuse," tæcan "to teach."