conscriptionn.
/kənˈskrɪpʃn/, U.S. /kənˈskrɪpʃ(ə)n/ I. A written record, and related senses.† 1. A written record or document; a piece of writing. Obsolete.† 2. The action or mode of writing something or registering something in writing. Obsolete.† 3. Joint signature. Obsolete. rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > record > written record > [noun]
bookeOE
writlOE
rolla1325
conscriptiona1382
lettersa1382
scripturea1382
monument1405
write1483
pancart1577
panchart1587
anagraphy1606
notitia1738
a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(1)) (1850) Tobit vii. 16 And the chartre taken, thei maden the conscripcioun [a1425 L.V. writyng togidere; L. conscriptionem] of the wedloc.
?a1425 tr. Guy de Chauliac Grande Chirurgie (N.Y. Acad. Med.) f. 3 To oþer forsoþ þis conscripsioun i. writing [L. conscripcio; Fr. ces escrits] shal be made so superflue as if he taled to an asse.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > writing > [noun] > setting down in writing
descrivingc1325
description?a1425
conscription1483
describing1553
1483 W. Caxton tr. J. de Voragine Golden Legende f. cccxxxijv/2 Thus Luke had..prouffyte by conscrypcion & wrytynge of his doctryne.
a1670 J. Hacket Cent. Serm. (1675) 49 After that conscription of their names in Caesars enrollment, whosoever believed in him, his name might be written among the Saints in the book of Life.
a1687 W. Petty Polit. Anat. Ireland (1691) 109 Where the same Land hath other Names, or hath been spelled with other Conscription of Letters or Syllables, that the same be mentioned with an alias.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > indication > that which identifies or distinguishes > personal identification > signature > [noun] > joint signature
conscription1615
1615 T. Adams Blacke Devill 4 They signe not..in their owne particular and singular names, but require the conscription, and euident consent of their Counsell.
4. A census. Now historical and rare.Apparently only with reference to censuses taken in Hungary in the late 18th century.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > number > enumeration, reckoning, or calculation > [noun] > counting people
numberingc1325
numbera1382
lustrum1598
capitation1646
poll1659
roll-calling1752
roll-call1763
census1769
conscription1797
head-counting1831
roller1883
headcount1913
1797 tr. in R. Townson Trav. Hungary iv. 181 Prior to the conscription of 1785, the population of this kingdom was greatly undervalued.
1804 J. Bigland Lett. Mod. Hist. Europe vi. 170 The population of Hungary is, according to the conscription laid before Joseph II. 1786, 7,001,152.
2010 G. B. Clark Irish Soldiers in Europe x. 236 In March 1772 Lacy reported that the conscription, or census, had been completed in the central provinces and was on-going elsewhere.
II. Military enlistment, and extended uses.
5.
a. The enrolment or enlistment of military personnel; an instance of this.Now historical or, with a modifier such as voluntary, explicitly distinguished from sense 5b.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > military organization > enlistment or recruitment > [noun]
enrolling1467
raisec1500
conscription1529
prest1542
enrolment1552
listing1641
delectus1656
enlisting1757
enlistment1765
recruitment1793
crimping1795
sign-up1908
induction1934
1529 T. Wolsey in Bp. G. Burnet Hist. Reformation (1825) I. ii. 84 Not having..none order, provision of victual, towardness in conscription of men of war, or appearance of such thing.
1612 S. Lennard tr. P. de Mornay Mysterie Iniquitie liii. sig. Nniii He turned likewise the Croisado against him, and in the assistance and fauor of Charles, he promised plenarie remission of sins to all those that would assume this conscription military vpon them.
1656 T. Blount Glossographia Conscription, an enrolling.
1786 New Ann. Reg. 1785 Brit. & Foreign Hist. 20/2 The military conscription was no sooner puplished [sic] in their country, than they came into the measure with great alacrity and inlisted with ardour.
1790 Ann. Reg. 1788 43/1 This enormous consumption of men..rendered prompt in the supply through the coercive effect of the military conscriptions.
1806 Panoplist June 39/2 During the last war, when a conscription took place, every art was used to enrol Protestants as soldiers, that they might perish by the sword of the enemy.
1831 W. Wallace Hist. Life & Reign George IV I. x. 294 The British nation immediately presented once more the spectacle of a people armed en masse, by voluntary conscription.
1901 A. H. J. Greenidge Rom. Public Life iii. 138 Service in the legions (militia) was in theory a burden.., and the citizen who did not present himself for the conscription was sold as a slave across the Tiber.
2000 Afr. News (Nexis) 2 May The optional protocol..raises the age of child recruitment in armed conflict to 18 years and voluntary conscription to 16 years.
b. spec. The compulsory enlistment of civilians for military service; an instance of this. (Now the usual sense.)Although earlier uses of conscription sometimes referred to coercive methods of enlistment (see e.g. quot. 1790 at sense 5a), and some conscriptive systems (such as the Prussian canton system) were already in place by the early 18th cent., the use of the word conscription with the specific sense of legally-enforced enlistment was introduced in connection with the French Jourdan Law, passed on 5 September 1798, which decreed that all able-bodied men between the ages of 20 and 25 were legally liable to serve in the army. Originally, conscription implied the enrolment by lot of a fixed number of those liable to serve, with the option given of procuring a substitute, but since the First World War (1914–18) it has generally implied universal national service.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > military organization > enlistment or recruitment > [noun] > compulsory
pressing1591
press?1592
impress1603
imprest1610
impressing1641
draft1757
conscription1799
press-ganging1863
blood tax1890
call-up1916
comb1916
1799 tr. F. D'Ivernois Hist. & Polit. Surv. Losses French Nation 32 Every citizen not married previous to the 12th January 1798, was subjected to the new conscription [Fr. la nouvelle Conscription].
1808 M. L. Weems Life G. Washington (ed. 7) xvi. 221 Our persons have been free from the violence of impressments and conscriptions.
1813 Examiner 18 Jan. 38/2 The Conscription of 1813 has furnished 160,000 men.
1838 T. Arnold Hist. Rome I. 480 The Africans..were subject to taxes and to a conscription of their youth to serve as soldiers.
1878 J. Morley Diderot I. 208 Peasants turned lackeys to escape the conscription, just as in our own days they turn priests.
1915 M. Gyte Diary 20 May (1999) 53 A coalition ministry is to be formed and I am afraid conscription is coming soon.
1941 ‘Faugh-a-Ballagh’ 34 47/2 In these days of conscription there must be members of the Regiment with a gift for writing stories or with an aptitude for sketching or photography.
1974 U. K. Le Guin Dispossessed (1975) ix. 230 They're used to mass conscriptions.
2000 B. Wicker in A. Hastings et al. Oxf. Compan. Christian Thought 509/1 The war's massive casualties among volunteer soldiers made conscription unavoidable.
c. figurative and in extended use; esp. the action of assigning or appropriating something. Cf. enlist v. 2.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > possession > taking > taking possession > [noun] > appropriation
appropriation1393
propriation1602
appropriating1611
impatronization1611
impropriation1614
propriatinga1631
pocketing1638
picking1642
self-assumptiona1658
assumption1754
conscription1814
mopping-up1909
1814 Q. Rev. 11 96 The conscription of ancient and vulgar terms to the service of poetry.
1906 F. N. Peloubet & A. R. Wells Select Notes 327 There is no levy or conscription into the kingdom of God, like the forced levy of Solomon.
1990 L. H. Tribe Abortion 114 If she is to exercise the liberty to resist the conscription of her body as a vessel and a vehicle for another life, then,..she has no alternative other than the tragic one of ending the fetus's life.
2004 A. P. Lyons & H. D. Lyons Irregular Connections 19 Modes of conscription in which the author enlists the ideas or experience of others into some present argument.
d. Compulsory enlistment for any state service; esp. forced labour. Also: an instance of this. Esp. in labour conscription.
ΚΠ
1868 Calcutta Rev. 47 192 No sound principle is violated even if Government institutes a sort of labour conscription in Bengal.
1917 Cigar Makers' Official Jrnl. Nov. 8/1 No conscription of labor or form of compulsion is contemplated by the Department of Labor.
1963 S. M. Soloviev in M. Raeff Peter the Great 80 The Russians had no respite from conscriptions: into difficult and continuous military service in the infantry and the newly-formed navy; for newly-organized heavy labor duty in distant and unattractive regions; into schools and for study assignments abroad.
1981 Washington Post 30 Dec. a16/5 Polish authorities were considering labor conscription for men between the ages of 18 and 45 ‘who do not work or study.’
2005 Canad. Jrnl. Polit. Sci. 38 3 People compelled to work for the state by the grain monopoly, food rationing and labour conscription would be people the state could easily control.
6. A body of conscripts. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > warrior > soldier > soldier by type of service > [noun] > conscript > collectively
levy1611
conscription1800
1800 tr. Hist. Campaign I. iii. 38 The regiments of the frontiers, (composed of the military conscriptions from Croatia and Bosnia), were on their march.
1823 R. Southey Hist. Peninsular War I. 115 General Clarke..advised that the conscription for the year 1809 should be called out.
1908 C. Oman Hist. Peninsular War III. xxi. iv. 420 The labour available was, firstly, that of the Lisbon militia regiments..and lastly of a conscription from the whole of southern Estremadura.
7. The requisition or levying of money, goods, etc., esp. for military purposes; an instance of this. Esp. in conscription of wealth.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > military organization > logistics > [noun] > provision or procurement of supplies > requisitioning
requisitionc1806
conscription1820
1820 H. Matthews Diary of Invalid (ed. 2) 389 There needs but one law more—a property tax, which is a conscription of money, as the other is of men.
1885 tr. M. d'Irisson Jrnl. Staff-officer Paris iii. 41 In such towns as are capable of sustaining a siege there is..a conscription of horses which must leave the coach or the plough to drag guns into action.
1916 Times 7 Jan. 6/5 Conscription of labour had been mentioned; but what about the conscription of wealth? Was not the nation needing money more than it was needing men?
1935 Princeton Alumni Weekly 15 Feb. 396/1 The total vote was 81.5 per cent for conscription of capital..in time of war.
1988 Jrnl. Brit. Stud. 27 287 This campaign for the conscription of wealth led inexorably to the demand for socialization in Labour's new constitution of 1918.
2011 Pittsburgh Tribune Rev. (Nexis) 17 July Liberals ramping up their thesis of better living through greater government conscription of wealth.
Compounds
General attributive (chiefly in sense 5b), as conscription act, conscription bill, conscription levy, conscription system, etc.
ΚΠ
1797 tr. in R. Townson Trav. Hungary xii. 291 There are 160 families of Jews, as a gentleman, who had been engaged in drawing up the conscription lists, assured me.
1803 Sketches Intrinsic Strength France & Russia I. 57 In as far as relates to the conscription system in France, this difference is professed to be done away; and the mass of the nation rejoice at it.
1863 Illustr. London News 42 551/1 The Federal Government intends to commence the enforcement of the Conscription Act at once.
1917 Times 2 Jan. 7/1 There were almost daily purgings by the expulsion of State and Federal Labour members..associated..with the conscription campaign.
1940 Life 30 Sept. 18/2 Even before the President signed the conscription bill, the martial movement of America was already under way.
2000 M. Broers Napoleon's Other War ii. 47 The government had announced a supplementary conscription levy of 200,000 men.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.a1382