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Origin and history of custom

custom(n.)

c. 1200, custume, "habitual practice," either of an individual or a nation or community, from Old French costume "custom, habit, practice; clothes, dress" (12c., Modern French coutume), from Vulgar Latin *consuetumen, from Latin consuetudinem (nominative consuetudo) "habit, usage, way, practice, tradition, familiarity," from consuetus, past participle of consuescere "accustom," from com-, intensive prefix (see com-), + suescere "become used to, accustom oneself," related to sui, genitive of suus "oneself," from PIE *swe- "oneself" (see idiom).

Custom implies continued volition, the choice to keep doing what one has done; as compared with manner and fashion, it implies a good deal of permanence. [Century Dictionary]

A doublet of costume. An Old English word for it was þeaw. Meaning "the practice of buying goods at some particular place" is from 1590s. Sense of a "regular" toll or tax on goods is early 14c. The native word here is toll (n.).

Custom-house "government office at a point of import and export for the collection of customs" is from late 15c. Customs "area at a seaport, airport, etc., where baggage is examined" is by 1921.

Old customs! Oh! I love the sound,

However simple they may be:

Whate'er with time has sanction found,

Is welcome, and is dear to me.

Pride grows above simplicity,

And spurns it from her haughty mind,

And soon the poet's song will be

The only refuge they can find.

[from "December," John Clare, 1827]

also from c. 1200

custom(adj.)

"made to measure or order, done or made for individual customers," by 1830, from custom (n.).

also from 1830

Entries linking to custom

costume(n.)

1715, "style of dress," but also more broadly "custom or usage with respect to place and time, as represented in art or literature; distinctive action, appearance, arms, furniture, etc.," from French costume (17c.), from Italian costume "fashion, habit," from Latin consuetudinem (nominative consuetudo) "custom, habit, usage." Essentially the same word as custom but arriving by a different path.

Originally it was an art term, referring to congruity in representation. From "customary clothes of the particular period in which the scene is laid," the meaning broadened by 1818 to "any defined mode of dress, external dress." Costume jewelry, made to be worn as an accessory to fashionable costume, is attested by 1917. Related: Costumic.

idiom(n.)

1580s, "form of speech peculiar to a people or place;" meaning "phrase or expression peculiar to a language" is from 1620s; from French idiome (16c.) and directly from Late Latin idioma "a peculiarity in language."

This is from Greek idiōma "peculiarity, peculiar phraseology" (Fowler writes that "A manifestation of the peculiar" is "the closest possible translation of the Greek word"), from idioumai "to appropriate to oneself," from idios "personal, private" (as opposed to dēmosios "public); properly "particular to oneself, one's own" (as opposed to allotrios).

This is from PIE *swed-yo-, suffixed form of root *s(w)e-, pronoun of the third person and reflexive (referring back to the subject of a sentence), also used in forms denoting the speaker's social group, "(we our-)selves" (source also of Sanskrit svah, Avestan hva-, Old Persian huva "one's own," khva-data "lord," literally "created from oneself;" Greek hos "he, she, it;" Latin suescere "to accustom, get accustomed," sodalis "companion;" Old Church Slavonic svoji "his, her, its," svojaku "relative, kinsman;" Gothic swes "one's own;" Old Norse sik "oneself;" German Sein; Old Irish fein "self, himself").

[G]rammar & idiom are independent categories; being applicable to the same material, they sometimes agree & sometimes disagree about particular specimens of it; the most can be said is that what is idiomatic is far more often grammatical than ungrammatical, but that is worth saying, because grammar & idiom are sometimes treated as incompatibles .... [Fowler]