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Origin and history of rely

rely(v.)

mid-14c., relien, "to gather, assemble" an army, followers, a host, etc. (transitive and intransitive), from Old French relier "assemble, put together; fasten, fasten again, attach, rally, oblige," from Latin religare "fasten, bind fast," from re-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see re-), + ligare "to bind" (from PIE root *leig- "to tie, bind").

The older sense now are obsolete. The meaning "depend on with full trust and confidence, attach one's faith to" a person or thing is from 1570s, perhaps via the notion of "rally to, fall back on." Typically used with on, perhaps by influence of unrelated lie (v.2) "rest horizontally." Related: Relied; relying.

The verb rely, in the orig. sense 'fasten, fix, attach,' came to be used with a special reference to attaching one's faith or oneself to a person or thing (cf. 'to pin one's faith to a thing,' 'a man to tie to,' colloquial phrases containing the same figure); in this use it became, by omission of the object, in transitive, and, losing thus its etymological associations (the other use, 'bring together again, rally,' having also become obsolete), was sometimes regarded, and has been by some etymologists actually explained, as a barbarous compound of re- + E. lie (1) rest, .... But the pret. would then have been *relay, pp. *relain. [Century Dictionary]

also from mid-14c.

Entries linking to rely

reliable(adj.)

1560s, raliabill, "that may be relied on, fit to be depended on, trustworthy," originally Scottish; see rely + -able. Not common before 1850, and often execrated thereafter in Britain as an Americanism because it involves a use of -able different from its use in provable, etc., and not warranted in classical Latin. But it is defended (by OED, Century Dictionary, etc.) on grounds of the suffix's sense in available, laughable, livable, dependable; indispensable, etc. Related: Reliably; reliableness. As a noun, "a reliable person, beast, or thing," by 1890 (with old).

Reliable expresses what cannot be expressed by any other one word. Moreover, it conveys an idea of constant occurrence. He who would be exact has, indeed, no alternative, if he avoids it except a periphrasis. [Fitzedward Hall, "On English Adjectives in -Able," 1877]

reliance(n.)

"act of relying; condition or character of being reliant," c. 1600; see rely (v.) + -ance.