scion
English
WOTD – 30 April 2009
Alternative forms
Variant spellings[1]
- <s‒vowel>-initial, <n>-terminal:
- (14th century):
- sioun
- syoun
- (15th century):
- syon
- (16th century):
- sien
- sion
- syen
- syon
- (17th century):
- seyon
- sien
- syen
- (14th century):
- <c>-initial, <n>-terminal:
- (16th century):
- cion
- (17th–18th centuries):
- cien
- cion
- cyen
- cyon
- (19th century–present day):
- cion (now chiefly in botanical senses)
- (16th century):
- [s]- or [t]-terminal:
- (16 th century):
- science
- scyence
- siens
- sient
- (17th century):
- cions
- cyence
- cyens
- cyons
- sciance
- science
- scient
- sience
- siens
- sient
- (16 th century):
- <sc>-initial, <n>-terminal:
- (14th century):
- scyon
- (15th century):
- scion
- scioun
- (16th century):
- scion
- (17th century):
- scien
- scion
- scyen
- (18th–19 th centuries):
- scion
- scyon
- (20th century–present day):
- scion (standard spelling)
- (14th century):
Mangrove scion in Mono river estuary, Benin
Etymology
From Middle English sion, sioun, syon, scion, cion, from Old French cion, ciun, cyon, sion; from Frankish *kīþō, *kīþ, from Proto-Germanic *kīþô, *kīþą, *kīþaz (“sprout”), from Proto-Indo-European *geye- (“to split open, sprout”), same source as Old English ċīþ (“a young shoot; sprout; germ; sprig”), Old Saxon kīth (“sprout; germ”), Old High German kīdi (“offshoot; sprout; germ”). See also French scion and Picard chion.[1] Doublet of chit.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈsaɪən/[1]
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈsaɪ.ən/, /ˈsaɪ.ɑn/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -aɪən
Noun
scion (plural scions)
- A descendant, especially a first-generation descendant of a distinguished family.
- 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 230675575, page 15:
- No senate seats in council for the dead; no scion of a time honoured dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel house; the general's hand is cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his native fields, unhonoured, though in youth.
- 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 9, in Crime out of Mind:
- Rudolf was the bold, bad Baron of traditional melodrama. Irene was young, as pretty as a picture, fresh from a music academy in England. He was the scion of an ancient noble family; she an orphan without money or friends.
- 1966, Sholem Aleichem, An Early Passover, paperback edition, Clifton Pub. Co., page 24:
- It was said to him that those people were the scions of Zion.
- 1986, David Leavitt, The Lost Language of Cranes, paperback edition, Penguin, page 72:
- He could show his parents Eliot, scion of Derek Moulthorp, and then how could they say he was throwing his life away?
-
- The heir to a throne.
- A guardian.
- (botany) A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting; a shoot or twig in a general sense.
- 1613, G[ervase] M[arkham], “Of the Setting or Planting of the Cyons or Branches of Most Sorts of Fruit-trees”, in The English Husbandman, […], revised edition, London: […] [Augustine Matthews and John Norton] for Henry Taunton, […], published 1635, OCLC 84770138, 2nd part (Containing the Art of Planting, Grafting, and Gardening, […]), page 132:
- [If] you finde a certaine miſlike or conſumption in the plant, you ſhall immediatly vvith a ſharp knife cut the plant off ſlope-vviſe upvvard, about three fingers from the ground, and ſo let it reſt till the next ſpring, at vvhich time you ſhall behold nevv cyons iſſue from the roote, […]
- 2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 681:
- He used to think that the plums in this country weren’t good enough, and so he has reformed them, grafting scion to rootstock.
-
Translations
descendant
|
heir to a throne
|
(detached) shoot or twig
|
Trivia
One of three common words ending in -cion, the other two being coercion and suspicion.[2][3]
References
- “scion” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]
- Notes and Queries, Vol. VI, No. 10, 1889, October, p. 365
- Editor and Publisher, Volume 9, 1909, p. 89
Further reading
- “scion”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Anagrams
- Coins, ICONs, Nicos, cions, coins, icons, sonic
French
Etymology
From Old French cion, ciun, from Frankish *kithō, from Proto-Germanic *kīþô, *kīþą, from Proto-Indo-European *geye- (“to split open, to sprout”). Spelling influenced by scie (“saw”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /sjɔ̃/
Audio (file)
Noun
scion m (plural scions)
- scion (detached twig)
- Synonym: greffon
- tip of a fishing rod
See also
- (tip of fishing rod): canne
Further reading
- “scion”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.