Other forms: declarations
A declaration is a formal statement made in public and on the record. A minister reading a text from a podium, a country declaring independence, a form at customs where you list what is in your bags.
It splits into two everyday areas. In politics and law there is the grand kind: a declaration of war, a declaration of independence, the declaration of interests a councillor signs every year. At an airport or a port there is the paperwork kind: a customs declaration listing goods, a tax declaration listing income. Either way it goes with OF — a declaration of war, a declaration of love — and the verb is declare. The formality is part of the meaning: a friend telling you their news makes an announcement, not a declaration. A declaration of love is the one place where the grandness is exactly the point.
1noundeclarationA formal statement made publicly or officially.
“The declaration was read out from the steps of the town hall.”
synonyms: proclamation, statement
2noundocumentAn official document listing goods, income or interests for the authorities.
“He filled in the customs declaration somewhere over the Channel.”
3nounopenAn open statement of a feeling or an intention.
“His declaration of love arrived at the worst possible moment.”
declaration is a formal statement.
Declaration travelled a well-worn road: Latin dēclārātiō into Old French declaration, and from French into Middle English, which spelled it declaracion, declaracioun and declaration by turns before the modern form won. French kept its own déclaration, and the two have sat side by side ever since.
Latin
dēclārātiōnem
Old French
declaration
Middle English
declaration
English, today
declaration
From Middle English declaration, declaracion, declaracioun, from Old French declaration (French déclaration), from Latin dēclārātiōnem, accusative of Latin dēclārātiō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Shipping & Logistics
First appears in chapter 8 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word