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Why would a 17th-century writer warn people that a chapel was only for “private or secret suffrages”? Because suffrage has been used since the 14th century to mean “prayer” (especially a prayer requesting divine help or intercession). So how did suffrage come to mean “a vote” or “the right to vote”? In answering that question, we get a lesson about the ways Latin words enter English. The Latin word suffrāgium has a number of vote-related meanings, including “a vote cast in an assembly” and “the right to vote.” In Medieval Latin, this same word had expanded to mean “vote, selection, aid, support, intercessory prayer,” and it’s this suffrāgium that gave us the prayer kind of suffrage in the 14th century. It wasn’t until the 16th century that English speakers mined the older—the classical—Latin suffrāgium for a word to use with regard to voting, and especially to refer to the right to vote.
Examples of suffrage in a Sentence
Maya Homan, USA TODAY, 13 Sep. 2024
There is also wisdom to be learned in the songs and traditions of past movements, when people banded together — for civil rights, for women’s suffrage — and found ways to keep hope alive against all odds.
—Rosanna Xia, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2024
Again, because more than 100 years ago, two women campaigning cross-country for women's suffrage adopted a cat, making the feline a sign of their movement.
—Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press, 10 Aug. 2024
Throughout the 19th century, vegetarianism was all the rage and had adherents in other progressive movements, like the fight for women’s suffrage.
—Crystal Heath, Vox, 9 Aug. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Suffrage.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suffrage. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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suffrage
noun
Legal Definition
Latin suffragium vote, political support, from suffragari to support with one's vote
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