The verbs you’ve ask about-“publicize” and “privatize”-are relative newcomers. The word “private,” Chambers says, is derived from the Latin privatus (apart from public life, deprived of office, belonging to an individual). It’s usually seen in the sense of affecting, open to, maintained by, or devoted to all the people or the community as a whole. The word “public” comes from the Latin publicus (pertaining to the people), according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.
Here, for example, is the first definition of “public” in the Oxford English Dictionary: “In general, and in most of the senses, the opposite of private adj.”Īnd this is the earliest definition of “private” in the OED: “Restricted to one person or a few persons as opposed to the wider community largely in opposition to public.” Is there any particular reason the forms developed such different meanings? And what would be the opposite of “privatize” in the business sense?Ī: You’re right that the adjectives “public” and “private” have generally described opposite things since they showed up in English in the late 14th century. Q: Although “public” and “private” are opposites, “publicize” and “privatize” aren’t.
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