The Forgettable Etymology of Oblivion

The following is a passage from my book, Useless Etymology, which will soon get paperback and audiobook editions.

You know, I used know the origin of the word oblivion, but I seem to have forgotten it. Oh yeah—it comes from the Latin oblivio, meaning “forgetfulness.”

The root of oblivio is debated, but the most commonly accepted theory is that it comes from a base word means “smooth,” so that when you add the prefix ob-, you get the meaning “to smooth over,” perhaps suggesting wiping something away. It’s that blank smoothness that gives us the sense of “oblivion” as a state of empty nothingness. Thus, sending something into oblivion means sending it to a place or reducing it to a state where it will be forgotten by history. (As some readers will also recall, obliviate! is also used as a memory-wiping spell in a certain book series about wizards and witches.)

Similarly, in 15^th-century English, the adjective “oblivious” was used specifically to describe someone who was extremely forgetful. In the 1800s, the meaning of the word broadened, so that now it doesn’t just refer to forgetfulness but also being generally unaware or spacey.

The word oblivion was also often used politically in the 15th and 16th centuries. The phrase “Acts of Oblivion” referred to instances in which the law intentionally overlooked certain crimes or offenses.

In an interesting parallel, the word “amnesty” comes from the Greek word for forgetfulness, amnestia, which is also the source of the word “amnesia.”

While we’re on the subject, the English word “forget” is pretty interesting. The prefix here is a specialized sense of for- that means “away,” similar to “forgo,” which means to refrain or literally go away from something. “Get” in this case comes from the Old English gietan “to grasp.” So, to forget is to grasp at something that has gone away.  

More on the prefix ob- : 

The direction in which this Latin prefix points varies depending on the word.

• Obnoxious breaks down into ob-, here meaning “toward” + noxa, meaning “hurt” or “injury.” This word means “annoying” now, but its Latin predecessor was more intense, meaning “injurious” or “hurtful.”
• Obfuscate breaks down into ob-, here meaning “in front of, before” + fuscare “to make dark”
• Obliterate originally meant “erase, blot out (writing),” from ob-, here meaning “against” + littera “letter, script.”
• Oblige is from ob-, here meaning meaning “to” + ligare “to bind,” so an obligation is a task to which one is figuratively bound.
• If you’re a longtime reader, you’ll know that obvious is one of my favorites for being a bit unobvious. If something is obvious, it’s clear and easy to see. So easy, in fact, that you might figuratively trip over it—and literally, too—because the word “obvious” literally means “in the way,” or more precisely, “in front of you on the path or road” (ob “in front of, against” + via “way”).
• One you may not know (but should definitely not forget) is obambulation, from ob-, here meaning “about” or “around,” + ambulare, meaning “to walk”—thus “a walking about.” It’s related to “amble” and “somnambulist.”