Question came into English in the early 1200s from Anglo-French and Old French, and directly from Latin quaestionem, "a seeking, an inquiry, a judicial investigation," from quaerere, "to ask, to seek" — the root behind query, inquire, require and conquest.
It is the French middle rung of the ladder ask, question, interrogate: the native word, the French word, the Latin word. Its first English sense is a philosophical or theological problem, and only in the early 1300s does it mean an utterance meant to elicit an answer. The Old French word carried a darker sense English mostly dropped: legal inquest, interrogation, and torture — putting someone to the question meant torturing them, a use that survived in English for centuries and shows how close the polite middle rung once sat to the police-station Latin at the top.
question (n.) early 13c., questioun , "philosophical or theological problem" (especially when phrased as an interrogative statement), early 14c. as "utterance meant to elicit an answer or discussion," also as "a difficulty, a doubt," from Anglo-French questiun , Old French question "question, difficulty, problem; legal inquest, interrogation, torture," and directly from Latin quaestionem (nominative quaestio ) "a seeking, a questioning, inquiry, examining, judicial investigation," noun of action from past-participle stem of quaerere "ask, seek" (see query (v.)). Also in Middle English "verbal contention, debate; legal proceedings, litigation, accusation." Phrase a question of meaning "a dispute about" is from early 15c. No question "undoubtedly" is from mid-15c; no questions asked "accountability not required" is from 1879 (especially in newspaper advertisements seeking the return of something lost or stolen). To be out of the question (c. 1700) is to be not pertinent to the subject, hence "not to be considered." To be in question "under discussion or consideration" is from 1610s. Question mark is from 1849, sometimes also question stop (1862), earlier interrogation point (1590s). The figurative sense of "something about which there is uncertainty or doubt" is from 1869. also from early 13c. question (v.) late 15c., questiounen , "to inquire, ask, seek to know," from question (n.) and from Old French questioner "ask questions, interrogate, torture" (13c.), from question (n.). Hence "to dispute, doubt," by 1530s. Transitive sense of "inquire of by asking questions" is from late 15c. Related: Questioned ; questioning . Alternative verb questionize is attested from 1847. also from late 15c.
question came in through Norman French, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
On the register ladder
English kept all three words for this idea, one from each layer, and the rung is itself the cue: the native word is blunt and concrete, the French one polite, the Latin one formal or technical.
| Old English | French | Latin |
|---|---|---|
| ask | question | interrogate |
Norman French in the spelling guide · guess another word's family