entry
abeyance
/əˈbeɪ.əns/Temporary suspension; dormant legal state
From Latin (reconstructed) Latin *batare (to yawn).
from Medieval Latin batō (“to yawn”).
from Old French abeance "aspiration, powerful desire," noun of condition
+1 more sourcefrom Anglo-French abeiance "suspension," also "expectation (especially in a lawsuit),"
Word Ancestry
from Medieval Latin batō (“to yawn”).
from Old French abeance "aspiration, powerful desire," noun of condition
+1 more sourcefrom Anglo-French abeiance "suspension," also "expectation (especially in a lawsuit),"
This one started out with a face, not a courtroom. Picture somebody standing there with mouth open, gaping or yawning — the old Latin *batare gave French baer, and that same gaping image wandered into English as bay, like a bay window with its little opened-out nook. Then French lawyers got hold of it, and by the 1520s the word was being used for a right or inheritance that was waiting around, not dead, not alive, just hanging there like a coat on a peg. English law then gave it a twist: property could be in abeyance, ownerless for the moment, while suspense and suspension later took their own route from Latin suspendere, a cousin idea of something left hanging. It’s a wonderfully tidy little accident — one open mouth becomes a legal pause button. Tomorrow you can remember it as the word for something that’s left with its breath held in.
The Story
This one started out with a face, not a courtroom. Picture somebody standing there with mouth open, gaping or yawning — the old Latin *batare gave French baer, and that same gaping image wandered into English as bay, like a bay window with its little opened-out nook. Then French lawyers got hold of it, and by the 1520s the word was being used for a right or inheritance that was waiting around, not dead, not alive, just hanging there like a coat on a peg. English law then gave it a twist: property could be in abeyance, ownerless for the moment, while suspense and suspension later took their own route from Latin suspendere, a cousin idea of something left hanging. It’s a wonderfully tidy little accident — one open mouth becomes a legal pause button. Tomorrow you can remember it as the word for something that’s left with its breath held in.
Kin & Kindred
From 'Latin *batare'·to yawn, gape
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Wikipedia