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Origin and history of value

value(n.)

c. 1300, "price equal to the intrinsic worth of a thing;" from Old French value "worth, price, moral worth; standing, reputation" (13c.), noun use of fem. past participle of valoir "be worth," from Latin valere "be strong, be well; be of value, be worth" (from PIE root *wal- "to be strong").

It is attested by late 14c. as "useful properties; degree to which something is useful or estimable; non-material worth;" also "appreciation, regard, relative status or esteem of a thing."

In music, relative length or duration of a tone; in painting, relation of one part to another or the rest with regard to light and shade.

The meaning "social principle" is attested by 1915 in reference to sociology (see values). Value judgment (1889) is a loan-translation of German Werturteil (from Wert "value," cognate with worth, + Urteil "judgment," cognate with ordeal).

also from c. 1300

value(v.)

mid-15c., valuen, "estimate the (monetary) worth of," also "think highly of, rate highly, consider with respect," from Anglo-French valuer or from value (n.). Related: Valued, valuing.

also from mid-15c.

Entries linking to value

ordeal(n.)

Old English ordel, ordal, "trial by physical test," literally "judgment, verdict," from Proto-Germanic noun *uz-dailjam "a portioning out, judgment" (source also of Old Saxon urdeli, Old Frisian urdel, Dutch oordeel, German urteil "judgment"), literally "that which is dealt out" (by the gods), from *uzdailijan "to share out," related to Old English adælan "to deal out," from *uz‑ "out" + PIE *dail- "to divide," ‌‌Northern Indo-European extended form of root *da- "to divide." It is rare in Middle English, and perhaps the modern word is a 16c. reborrowing from Medieval Latin or French, both of which got it from Germanic.

The notion is of the kind of arduous physical test (such as walking blindfolded and barefoot between red-hot plowshares) that was believed to determine a person's guilt or innocence by immediate judgment of the deity, an ancient Teutonic mode of trial. They were abolished in England in the reign of Henry III. English retains a more exact sense of the word; its cognates in German, etc., have been generalized as "judicial decision."

Metaphoric extension to "severe trial, test of courage or patience, anything which tests character or endurance" is attested from 1650s. The prefix or- survives in English only in this word, but was common in Old English and other Germanic languages (Gothic ur-, Old Norse or-, etc.) and originally was an adverb and preposition meaning "out."

values(n.)

"principles regarding what is important or right, standards of a person, group or society," 1918, from plural of value (n.) in the sense "properties of a thing which make it useful or essential."

It is perhaps short for social values, attested by 1915 as "moral principles of a people or nation" in a paper by Theodore Roosevelt on the war in Europe, "Social Values and National Existence."

Social value is in use from c. 1901 in U.S. real-estate taxation debates, but as "values of property not created by labor or industry, but which are created by, and wholly dependent upon the existence and growth of organized society." [notes on a conference on taxation in Buffalo Post, May 25, 1901]