Etymology

optant

O1P3T1A1N1T1

Today it means: A person who lives in a region undergoing a change of sovereignty and thus may choose between retaining their old citizenship or opting for the citizenship of the new sovereignty. Full definition →

First used 1914German Optant ← Danish optant
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Danish · borrowed fromoptant
  2. German · borrowed fromOptant
  3. English todayoptant

Partly (sense 1) borrowed from German Optant or Danish optant (both attested since 1907), partly from opt + ant.

First known use, by meaning

  • from 1914 A person who lives in a region undergoing a change of sovereignty and thus may choose between retaining their old citizenship or opting for the citizenship of the new sovereignty.
  • from 1943 A person who opts into, out of, or for something.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.