883: suffrage May 9, 2017

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The idea of suffrage today would almost certainly bring up idea of one's right to vote. For a long time in the history of French and English however, this word denoted praying for another person, or "intercessory prayers", attributed to the Latin root, 'suffragium' meaning 'support', or a 'vote'. The  second element to this is debated but either it meant 'to shout', or 'to break'.  At first glance, the latter theory might not seem as reasonable, but keep in mind that voting in Greece was based on broken shell and pottery, giving English 'ostracize' , so it would be relevant in this case. Either way, the origins of this word go back millennia, but the sense of 'suffrage' as 'right to vote' was first found only in 1787, in the United States Constitution.

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