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Origin and history of legacy

legacy(n.)

late 14c., legacie, "body of persons sent on a mission," from Medieval Latin legatia, from Latin legatus "ambassador, envoy, deputy," noun use of past participle of legare "send with a commission, appoint as deputy, appoint by a last will" (see legate).

Sense of "property left by will, a gift by will" appeared in Scottish mid-15c. Legacy-hunter is attested from 1690s. French legs "a legacy" is a bad spelling of Old French lais (see lease (n.)). French legacie is attested only from 16c.

also from late 14c.

Entries linking to legacy

lease(n.)

late 14c., "legal contract conveying property, usually for a fixed period of time and with a fixed compensation," from Anglo-French les (late 13c.), Old French lais, lez "a lease, a letting, a leaving," verbal noun from Old French laissier "to let, allow, permit; bequeath, leave" (see lease (v.)). Figuratively from 1580s, especially of life. Modern French equivalent legs is altered by erroneous derivation from Latin legatum "bequest, legacy."

legate(n.)

mid-12c., "authorized representative of the Pope," from Old French legat and directly from Latin legatus "ambassador, envoy," originally "provided with a commission," past participle of legare "send as a deputy, send with a commission, charge, bequeath," possibly literally "engage by contract" and related to lex (genitive legis) "contract, law," from PIE root *leg- (1) "to collect, gather." General sense of "ambassador, delegate, messenger of a state or authority" is from late 14c. in English. Related: Legator; legatee; legatine.

*leg-(1)

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to collect, gather," with derivatives meaning "to speak" on the notion of "to gather words, to pick out words."

It might form all or part of: alexia; analects; analogous; analogue; analogy; anthology; apologetic; apologue; apology; catalogue; coil; colleague; collect; college; collegial; Decalogue; delegate; dialect; dialogue; diligence; doxology; dyslexia; eclectic; eclogue; elect; election; epilogue; hapax legomenon; homologous; horology; ideologue; idiolect; intelligence; lectern; lectio difficilior; lection; lector; lecture; leech (n.2) "physician;" legacy; legal; legate; legend; legible; legion; legislator; legitimate; lesson; lexicon; ligneous; ligni-; logarithm; logic; logistic; logo-; logogriph; logopoeia; Logos; -logue; -logy; loyal; monologue; neglect; neologism; philology; privilege; prolegomenon; prologue; relegate; sacrilege; select; syllogism; tautology; trilogy.

It might also be the source of: Greek legein "to say, tell, speak, declare; to count," originally, in Homer, "to pick out, select, collect, enumerate;" lexis "speech, diction;" logos "word, speech, thought, account;" Latin legere "to gather, choose, pluck; read," lignum "wood, firewood," literally "that which is gathered," legare "to depute, commission, charge," lex "law" (perhaps "collection of rules"); Albanian mb-ledh "to collect, harvest;" Gothic lisan "to collect, harvest," Lithuanian lesti "to pick, eat picking;" Hittite less-zi "to pick, gather."

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    heredity
    1530s, "inheritance, succession," from French hérédité, from Old French eredite "inheritance, legacy" (12c.), from Latin...
    patrimony
    mid-14c., patrimoine, "property of the Church," also "spiritual legacy of Christ," from Old French patremoine "heritage,...
    bequeath
    The original sense of "say, utter" died out 13c., leaving the word with only the legal sense of "transfer by legacy."...
    gift
    mid-13c. "that which is given" (c. 1100 in surnames), from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse gift, gipt "gift; good luck," from Proto-Germanic *geftiz (source also of Old Saxon gift, Old Frisian jefte, Middle Dutch ghifte "gift," German Mitgift "dowry"), from *geb- "to give
    rogue
    1560s, "idle vagrant, sturdy beggar, one of the vagabond class," a word of shadowy origin, perhaps a shortened form of roger (with a hard -g-), thieves' slang for a begging vagabond who pretends to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge, which is perhaps an agent noun in Engl
    anathema
    1520s, "an accursed thing," from Latin anathema "an excommunicated person; the curse of excommunication," from Ecclesiastical Greek anathema "a thing accursed," a slight variation of classical Greek anathama, which meant merely "a thing devoted," literally "a thing set up (to the
    scale
    [one of the skin plates on fish or snakes] c. 1300, from Old French escale "cup, scale, shell pod, husk" (12c., Modern French écale), from Frankish *skala or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *skæla "to split, divide" (source also of Dutch schaal "a scale, husk," Ol
    tacit
    c. 1600, "unspoken, noiseless, wordless; saying nothing, silent," by 1630s as "silently indicated or implied (in tacit approving), from French tacite and directly from Latin tacitus "that is passed over in silence, done without words, assumed as a matter of course, silent," past
    cologne
    "a distilled spirit blended with certain essential oils so as to give off a fragrant scent," by 1844, short for Cologne water (1814), loan-translation of French eau de Cologne (which also was used in English), literally "water from Cologne," from the city in Germany (German Köln,
    fiend
    Old English feond "enemy, foe, adversary," originally present participle of feogan "to hate," from Proto-Germanic *fijand- "hating, hostile" (source also of Old Frisian fiand "enemy," Old Saxon fiond, Middle Dutch viant, Dutch vijand "enemy," Old Norse fjandi, Old High German fia

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