Peculiar (meaning)

The adjective peculiar, whose common meaning in current everyday English is 'odd', 'unusual', has an interesting etymological history (below). It has some odd meanings as a noun too, of which some users of AWE, particularly lawyers, historians and theologians may want to be aware. Peculiar can also be used substantively - as a noun; in its purest form, it is equivalent to 'a peculiar characteristic', or peculiarity.

• The adjectival meanings began in the fifteenth century as 'belonging particularly [to someone or something]', sometimes in terms of property ('her [or his] own') and sometimes in a more extended sense 'special', 'remarkable', 'distinguished as an individual example'. This spills over into the construction
  • peculiar to, which OED defines as "exclusively or (formerly) particularly associated with, characteristic of, or belonging to." This is still to be seen in biological and geographical, etc, studies, although it may more commonly nowadays be replaced by such phrases as "is only found in...", "is restricted to ...", "is unique to ..." [a given habitat or context]
  • Specialized uses of the adjective peculiar include, in astronomy, the idea of peculiar motion (or peculiar velocity), that part of the motion of a star (or other heavenly body) that cannot be explained by Hubble's Law; in Theology, 'chosen specially by God', as in the idea of the elect, and most specifically in the name of the Christian sect the Peculiar People. This is akin to the Jewish claim to be the chosen race.
  • The peculiar people was also a circumlocution for 'the chosen race', a euphemism in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century for Jews.
  • The peculiar institution is a term applied to slavery, as practised in the southern states of the USA before its Civil War. Historians still use it, often within inverted commas. It appears to have largely euphemistic connotations.
• Certain meanings of 'a peculiar', as a noun, are:
• OED's meaning B 2., "A trait or quality exclusive to or characteristic of an individual or a thing; a distinguishing feature; a peculiarity. Now arch[aic] and rare" has been replaced in current English by peculiarity.
  • In constitutional terms, a peculiar is a region, organisation or institution etc which falls outside the jurisdiction or authority by which it would normally be expected to be ruled.
    • A royal peculiar is a place of [Christian] worship exempt from any jurisdiction but that of the sovereign (who is Head of the Church of England). There are around a dozen of these churches, including Westminster Abbey.
      • The Observer article of 8 May 1966, cited in OED as an illustration of another meaning, ("In contracts of service with the Royal Family the employee usually undertakes not to make any such disclosures, not only during his term of service, but even when it is over and done with. This is not a royal peculiar. Whether the employer is royal or common the courts can and do enforce these undertakings by an injunction") appears to be a simple error on the part of the journalist.
    • There are about 5 non-royal peculiars in the Church of England, including the chapels of the Inns of Court. According to OED, "Most peculiars were abolished in the 19th cent[ury]."
    • The royal peculiar is the post-Reformation equivalent of the pre-Reformation papal peculiar.
  • This constitutional; meaning of peculiar can be extended to extra-judicial areas not in terms of church administration, and (in the past) to parcels of land in the British-run North American colonies which had not yet been incorporated into the governance of a recognized town.

Etymological note: the ultimate root lies in Latin pecus, 'a flock' (in later Latin, of sheep) or 'herd' (originally) of cattle. From this was formed the noun peculium, which first meant 'a man's own herd or flock', and by extension 'one's own property': savings; a wife's settlement (her own property, safe from her husband); the goods and money a master allowed a slave to hold as property; independent property held by children, under the authority, or permission, of the paterfamilias; etc. The word peculium (plural peculia) is still occasionally to be found in English, mostly in writing about Law, history and so on :it gave the adjective pecūliāris. The sense of peculiar as 'to do with one's private property (peculium)' survived in English into the 17th century.

Peculiar is related to

• • the verb 'to peculate', 'to embezzle', 'to defraud of [money]', which was an eighteenth century use in English of the Latin verb pecūlāri, and is now a word to be found (and used) in fairly formal contexts.
  • Pecuniary, meaning 'to do with money', 'concerned with cash', is derived from pecunia, 'money', which, like peculium, has its ultimate source in pecus, 'herd', 'flock'.
  • Peculier - an archaic spelling of 'peculiar', which survives in some spellings by traditionalists of royal peculier, and in the non-royal peculier of Masham, a parish in Wensleydale not in the authority of the arch-diocese of York. Masham contains Theakstons Brewery, one of whose beers is named Old Peculier. (An old joke asserts that its name is because too much of the beer makes you feel both old and peculiar. Ha, ha.)