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Origin and history of historian

historian(n.)

"an author of history," mid-15c., as if from Medieval Latin *historianus, from Latin historia "narrative of past events; narrative account, report" (see history). Compare Old French ystorïen (adj.). As "writer of history in the higher sense" (distinguished from an annalist or chronicler), from 1530s. An Old English word was þeod-wita, also wyrd-writere "one who writes an account of events, a historian or historiographer" (see weird). The classical Latin word was historicus (adj.) used as a noun. Holinshed has historician.

[T]he historian's fallacy is the error of assuming that a man who has a given historical experience knows it, when he has had it, to be all that a historian would know it to be, with the advantage of historical perspective. [David Hackett Fischer, "Historians' Fallacies," 1970]

also from mid-15c.

Entries linking to historian

history(n.)

late 14c., historie, "relation of incidents" (true or false), from Old French estoire, estorie "story; chronicle, history" (12c., Modern French histoire), from Latin historia "narrative of past events, account, tale, story," from Greek historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry; an account of one's inquiries; knowledge, account, historical account, record, narrative."

This, along with verb historein "be witness or expert; give testimony, recount; find out, search, inquire," are derivatives of histōr "knowing, expert; witness" (as in hyperhistor "knowing all too well"), reconstructed to be from PIE *wid-tor-, from root *weid- "to see," hence "to know" [Watkins].

The word itself, but especially the derivations [historein, historia] that arose in Ionic, have spread over the Hellenic and Hellenistic world together with Ionic science and philosophy. [Beekes]

Thus it is related etymologically to Greek idein "to see," eidenai "to know," and to idea and vision.

In Middle English it was not differentiated from story (n.1). The general sense of "narrative record of past events" in English probably is attested late 15c. The meaning "recorded events of the past" also is from late 15c., as is use of the word in reference to a branch of knowledge. The meaning "a historical play or drama" is from 1590s.

The sense of "systematic account (without reference to time) of a set of natural phenomena" (1560s) is now obsolete except in natural history (as late as the 1880s county histories in the U.S. included lists of birds and fishes and illustrations of local slugs and freshwater clams).

The meaning "an eventful career, a past worthy of note" (a woman with a history) is from 1852. To make history "be notably engaged in public events" is from 1862.

History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us. [Johan Huizinga, "The Task of the Cultural Historian"]

History is more or less bunk [Henry Ford, Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1916]

One difference between history and imaginative literature ... is that history neither anticipates nor satisfies our curiosity, whereas literature does. [Guy Davenport, "Wheel Ruts," 1996]

weird(adj.)

c. 1400, "having power to control fate," in weird sisters, from weird (n.) "force that sets events in motion or determines their course; what is destined to befall one;" from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates." The modern senses developed from weird sisters, not immediately from the Old English word, which is etymologically "that which comes."

It is reconstructed to be from Proto-Germanic *wurthiz (source also of Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the three Norns"), itself reconstructed to be from PIE *wert- "to turn, to wind" (source also of German werden, Old English weorðan "to become"), from root *wer- (2) "to turn, bend." For the sense development from "turning" to "becoming," compare colloquial phrase turn into "become."

The sense of "uncanny, supernatural" developed from Middle English use of weird sisters for the three Fates, Parcae, or Norns (in Germanic mythology), the goddesses who controlled human destiny. They were portrayed as odd or frightening in appearance, as in "Macbeth" (especially in 18th and 19th century productions).

The modern adjectival use, without sisters, emerged early 19c. Todd's supplement to Johnson (1818) has it as "skilled in witchcraft." Shelley was perhaps the first to use it consistently in print as "supernatural, uncanny":

In lone and silent hours,

When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,

["Alastor"]

The weakened meaning "odd-looking, strange, disturbingly different" followed (1820). Also see Macbeth. Related: Weirdly; weirdish; weirdness.

As a verb, "change by witchcraft or sorcery." Earlier to be weirded in Middle English was "be foreordained or predestined."

historiaster(n.)

"petty or contemptible historian," 1887, from historian with ending altered to -aster. Coined by W.E. Gladstone, in a review of J. Dunbar Ingram's "History of the Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland."

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