Assercioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A firm and confident statement declaring that something is true, made without offering proof
2. The act of solemnly affirming or maintaining that a claim or fact holds good
3. An emphatic declaration in which someone insists that a thing is so

Etymology: In Roman law, "assertio" was a formal claim, and one of its uses was the "assertio in libertatem," a legal declaration that a person held in bondage was in fact free. The Latin verb "asserere" was built from "ad," meaning "to," and "serere," meaning "to join" or "bind," so to assert was to bind oneself to a claim. The noun passed into Old French as "assertion," and Middle English borrowed it, giving the spelling "assercioun" that appears in older English and Scots texts. Its sense of a confident, emphatic declaration of something as true follows from that original idea of binding oneself to a statement. The modern spelling "assertion" settled in later, while "assercioun" survives mainly in older writing.