sake
noun/ˈseɪ̯k/ · [ˈseɪ̯k]
Etymology
From Middle English sake (“sake, cause”), from Old English sacu (“cause, lawsuit, legal action, complaint, issue, dispute”), from Proto-West Germanic *saku, from Proto-Germanic *sakō (“affair, thing, charge, accusation, matter”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂g- (“to investigate”). Akin to West Frisian saak (“cause; business”), Low German Saak, Dutch zaak (“matter; cause; business”), German Sache (“thing; matter; cause; legal cause”), Danish sag, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish sak, Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌺𐌾𐍉 (sakjō, “dispute, argument”), Old English sōcn (“inquiry, prosecution”), Old English sēcan (“to seek”). More at soke, soken, seek.
Cause, interest or account.
- For the sake of argument
- I hope you're right, for all our sakes!
Purpose or end; reason.
- for old times' sake
- It's not worth risking your life for the sake of getting there a few minutes earlier.
The benefit or regard of someone or something.
- Ne ãd except thoſe dayes ſhulde be ſhoꝛtened / ſhulde no fleſſe be faved: Butt foꝛ the choſens ſake thoſe dayes ſhalbe ſhoꝛtened.1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Matthew xxiiij:[22], folio xxxiiij, verso:
- When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
1 more example
- 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 242a-b. But it will be for your sake that we'll undertake to refute this thesis, […]
Contention, strife; guilt, sin, accusation or charge.
Obsolete except in phrases
- And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 3:17:
- Derived terms
45 terms
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