Word of the Day

: August 26, 2023

suffrage

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noun SUF-rij

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What It Means

Suffrage means “the right to vote in an election.”

// The Nineteenth Amendment, which granted suffrage to women, was certified on August 26, 1920, making it an official part of the Constitution of the United States.

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suffrage in Context

“The Liberty Tree dates back to 1763, and it played a significant role in the Underground Railroad. ... The tree also stands outside what were once the High Street stables of Edward E. Bennett, a local hotel keeper who sheltered enslaved people seeking freedom along the Underground Railroad. During the 19th century, people often gathered around the tree to hear speeches by leaders of the time such as William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone, and Douglass on subjects ranging from abolition to women's suffrage.” — Tiana Woodard, The Boston Globe, 8 July 2023

Did You Know?

Why would a 17th-century writer warn people that a chapel was only for “private or secret suffrages”? Because suffrage has been used since the 14th century to mean “prayer” (especially a prayer requesting divine help or intercession). So how did suffrage come to mean “a vote” or “the right to vote”? In answering that question, we get a lesson about the ways Latin words enter English. The Latin word suffrāgium has a number of vote-related meanings, including “a vote cast in an assembly” and “the right to vote.” In Medieval Latin, this same word had expanded to mean “vote, selection, aid, support, intercessory prayer,” and it’s this suffrāgium that gave us the prayer kind of suffrage in the 14th century. It wasn’t until the 16th century that English speakers mined the older—the classical—Latin suffrāgium for a word to use with regard to voting, and especially to refer to the right to vote.