Q: In Josephine Tey’s 1950 novel To Love and Be Wise, a character puns on two meanings of “accommodate” (to oblige and to provide lodging). I’d like to know the history here, if you’ll accommodate me.
A: The adjective “accommodating” and the noun “accommodation” are used in that witty conversation between Miss Searle and Detective Inspector Alan Grant:
“You are very accommodating for a policeman,” she remarked.
“Criminals don’t find us that way,” he said.
“I thought providing accommodation for criminals was the end and object of Scotland Yard.”
The verb “accommodate” ultimately comes from the Classical Latin accommodare (to fit on, attach, make agree, make suitable, adapt), according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
But as the OED explains, some of the English senses, including the obliging and lodging meanings, were influenced by Middle French.
When “accommodate” first appeared in English in the early 16th century, the dictionary says, it meant “to apply, attribute, or ascribe (esp. words) to a person,” a sense that’s now obsolete.
The earliest Oxford citation, which we’ve edited and expanded, is from The Boke Named the Gouernour (1531), a treatise by the English scholar and diplomat Thomas Elyot on how to properly train statesmen.
In referring to the Latin expression nosce te ipsum (“know thyself”), Elyot says it “is of olde writars supposed for to be firste spoken by Chilo [Chilon of Sparta] or some other of the seuen auncient Greekes [the Seven Sages of Greece],” while “Others do accommodate it to Apollo.”
The OED says the English verb soon took on the sense of “to adapt oneself to another thing or person.” The first example cited is from a 1538 Latin dictionary written by Elyot:
“Scio vti foro, I knowe what I haue to do, also I can accommodate my selfe to other mens maners, & to the condycions of the tyme and place present.” (A literal translation of the Latin expression would be “I know how to use the forum.”)
In the late 16th century, the verb took on its lodging sense, which the OED defines as “to provide lodging for (a person), esp. as a guest; to house; (also) to receive as an inmate.”
The dictionary’s first example, which we’ve edited and expanded, cites a May 29, 1592, letter from Florence, Italy, by the British author and diplomat Henry Wotton:
“Touching my private self, I continue in the house of Signor Bacchio Boni, in Via Larga, where I am reasonably well accommodated, but for my ten crowns a month” (The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 1907, by Logan Pearsall Smith).
In the early 17th century, the verb took on its obliging sense, which the OED defines as “to oblige, assist, or confer a favour on (a person); to be suitable or convenient for.”
The dictionary’s earliest citation is from A General History of the Netherlands (1608), Edward Grimeston’s translation of a French work by Jean-François le Petit:
“Laying before them the great benefits which the empire had receiued from the king of Spaine, and the house of Burgoigne; wherefore it was reciprocally bound to serue and accommodate him therein.”
In the early 17th century, the noun “accommodation” appeared in its lodging sense, which the OED defines as “room and provision for the reception of people.”
The dictionary’s first citation, which we’ve expanded here, is from Shakespeare’s Othello, believed written around 1603:
“I craue fit disposition for my wife, / Due reuerence of place and exhibition, / Which such accomodation and besort [suitable company] / As leuels with her breeding.”
The adjective “accommodating” appeared in the mid-17th century, the OED says, and describes something “that accommodates (in various senses), esp. obliging, pliant, conciliatory; easy to deal with.”
The first obliging citation is from a treatise on marriage: “An accomodating, plyable and acceptable spirit to traffique with others” (Matrimoniall Honovr, 1642, by the Anglican cleric Daniel Rogers).
Finally, the latest Oxford citation for the verb “accommodate” used in its obliging sense is from Two in Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing (2006), by Paul C. Rosenblatt:
“An important part of getting along with someone in a long term, intimate relationship is learning how to accommodate and tolerate.”
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