The word depression (/dɪˈprɛʃən/), a noun which was introduced to the English language by the turn of the fifteenth century, holds a wide range of meanings today. It can refer to an economic condition, an emotional one, or a physical one. The word even has a number of mathematical and scientific uses in the fields of algebra, geology, astronomy, and psychology. Depression originates from the Latin verb dēprimĕre, meaning “to press down.” Its current morphology is dated to 14th century French, depression (Oxford English Dictionary).
The word first enters the English language as an astronomical term, mentioned by Chaucer’s A Treatise on the Astrolabe sometime before 1400, to describe “the angular distance of a star, the pole, etc., below the horizon” (OED). Its next appearance is in religious reformer John Frith’s 1531 A Disputation of Purgatory, when he names “adversity, tribulation, and worldly depression” as part of the scourge of God (Frith 91). In this particular sense, the word refers to a downturn in one’s personal situation or station in life (OED). Similar usages, each denoting a figurative lowering rather than a literal depression, appear in 1628 to mean “depreciation” and 1656 to mean “suppression” (OED).
Throughout the 17th century, the meaning assigned to the word depression increased to include its most common literal usage today; its definition of “a pressing or weighing down” first appears in Thomas Blount’s 1656 Glossographia (Blount). In 1665, the indention made by such an action had been assigned to the word as well (OED). That same year also marked the first occurrence in print of the word to refer to a “depression of spirit,” in an annotation made by Edward Phillips to Sir Richard Baker’s A Chronicle on the Kings of England (Baker 699). The 18th and 19th centuries saw the adaptation of the word to a broader range of technical, scientific, and mathematical lexicons, including algebra in 1728, economics in 1793, pathology in 1803, music in 1831, meteorology in 1881, and notably and most recently, psychology in 1905 (OED).
Works Cited
Baker, Sir Richard. A Chronicle of the Kings of England. (Sawbridge, Tooke & Sawbridge, 1684). Web. 16 April 2016. <books.google.com>
Blount, Thomas. Glossographia Anglicana Nova. (D. Brown, 1707). Web. 16 April 2016. <books.google.com>
Frith, John. The Works of the English Reformers. Thomas Russell, ed. (Ebenezer Palmer, 1831). Web. 16 April 2016. <books.google.com>
Oxford University Press. “Depression.” Oxford English Dictionary Online. Web. 16 April 2016. <www.OED.com>
