Wiktionary

scion

English

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WOTD – 30 April 2009

Alternative forms

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Variant spellings[1]
 
Mangrove scion in Mono river estuary, Benin

Etymology

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From Middle English sion, sioun, syon, scion, cion, from Old French cion, ciun, cyon, sion, from Frankish *kīþō, *kīþ, from Proto-Germanic *kīþô, *kīþą, *kīþaz (“sprout”), from Proto-Indo-European *geye- (“to split open, sprout”), same source as Old English ċīþ (“a young shoot; sprout; germ; sprig”), Old Saxon kīth (“sprout; germ”), Old High German kīdi (“offshoot; sprout; germ”). See also French scion and Picard chion.[1] Doublet of chit.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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scion (plural scions)

  1. A descendant, especially a first-generation descendant of a distinguished family.
    • 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 15:
      No senate seats in council for the dead; no scion of a time honoured dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel house; the general's hand is cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his native fields, unhonoured, though in youth.
    • 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 9, in Crime out of Mind‎[1]:
      Rudolf was the bold, bad Baron of traditional melodrama. Irene was young, as pretty as a picture, fresh from a music academy in England. He was the scion of an ancient noble family; she an orphan without money or friends.
    • 1966, Sholem Aleichem, An Early Passover, paperback edition, Clifton Pub. Co., page 24:
      It was said to him that those people were the scions of Zion.
    • 1986, David Leavitt, The Lost Language of Cranes, paperback edition, Penguin, page 72:
      He could show his parents Eliot, scion of Derek Moulthorp, and then how could they say he was throwing his life away?
  2. The heir to a throne.
  3. A guardian.
  4. (botany) A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting; a shoot or twig in a general sense.
    • 1613, G[ervase] M[arkham], “Of the Setting or Planting of the Cyons or Branches of Most Sorts of Fruit-trees”, in The English Husbandman, […], revised edition, London: […] [Augustine Matthews and John Norton] for Henry Taunton, […], published 1635, →OCLC, 2nd part (Containing the Art of Planting, Grafting, and Gardening, […]), page 132:
      [If] you finde a certaine miſlike or conſumption in the plant, you ſhall immediatly vvith a ſharp knife cut the plant off ſlope-vviſe upvvard, about three fingers from the ground, and ſo let it reſt till the next ſpring, at vvhich time you ſhall behold nevv cyons iſſue from the roote, […]
    • 2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 681:
      He used to think that the plums in this country weren’t good enough, and so he has reformed them, grafting scion to rootstock.

Translations

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Trivia

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One of three common words ending in -cion, the other two being coercion and suspicion.[2][3]

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 “scion” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]
  2. ^ Notes and Queries, Vol. VI, No. 10, 1889, October, p. 365
  3. ^ Editor and Publisher, Volume 9, 1909, p. 89

Further reading

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Anagrams

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French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French cion, ciun, from Frankish *kiþō, from Proto-Germanic *kīþô, *kīþą, from Proto-Indo-European *geye- (“to split open, to sprout”). Spelling influenced by scie (“saw”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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scion m (plural scions)

  1. scion (detached twig)
    Synonym: greffon
  2. tip of a fishing rod

See also

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  • (tip of fishing rod): canne

Further reading

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Irish

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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scion f (genitive singular scine, nominative plural sceana)

  1. Ulster form of scian (“knife”)

Declension

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Declension of scion

Second declension

Bare forms

Case Singular Plural
Nominative scion sceana
Vocative a scion a sceana
Genitive scine sceana
Dative scion
scin (archaic, dialectal) 		sceana

Forms with the definite article

Case Singular Plural
Nominative an scion na sceana
Genitive na scine na sceana
Dative leis an scion
leis an scin (archaic, dialectal)

don scion
don scin (archaic, dialectal)

leis na sceana

References

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  1. ^ Quiggin, E. C. (1906) A Dialect of Donegal, Cambridge University Press, page 41
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