Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Parole
/pəˈroʊl/noun
The conditional release of a prisoner before the full sentence is served.
The Greek roots
παρά
pará
beside
βάλλω
bállō
to throw
Literally: “a throwing beside, a spoken comparison”
The story of the word
The full phrase was parole d'honneur: a captured officer gave his word not to take up arms again and was let go on it, an arrangement that worked because breaking it ended a gentleman socially. American prison reformers of the nineteenth century took the term over with its logic intact, liberty granted against a promise. In French the word simply means speech, and Saussure used it for what people actually say as against langue, the system they say it in.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
parableparliamentparabolapalaverparley
In a sentence
He came up for parole in March and had a job waiting on the outside.