Other forms: remissions
In medicine, remission is the period when the signs of a disease ease or disappear. In remission, a long remission, the cancer went into remission. It is not the same as cure, and that difference is the whole weight of the word: a remission can end.
The other senses share the idea of something being let off. A prisoner may get remission of a sentence, meaning time taken off for good behaviour. A debt or a payment may be remitted, and its remission is the cancelling of it. In religion, remission of sins is the formal term for forgiveness. All four come from the same picture, and it is worth seeing them together, because the medical sense is otherwise hard to feel: the illness has been let off, not cured.
1nounremissionA period when the signs of a disease ease or disappear.
“She has been in remission for four years.”
2noundebtThe cancelling of a debt or a punishment.
“He was granted remission of a third of the sentence.”
3nounreligionIn religion, the forgiveness of sins.
“The prayer asks for the remission of sins.”
Latin remissio meant a sending back or a slackening, from remittere, to send back or let go — the same verb behind remit and remittance. Every English sense is a letting-go: of a sin, a debt, a sentence, or a disease's grip.
Proto-Indo-European
*mey- (change)
Latin
remissiō — forgiveness; pardon of sins
Old French
remission — forgiveness of sin; pardoning of an offence; postponement; cessation, suspension; diminishing or weakening of something; reduction of debt; reduction in intensity of a disease or symptom
Anglo-Norman
remission
Middle English
remissioun — release from duty; freeing of captives; mercy, pardon, respite; forgiveness; release from or reduction of penances; reduction in intensity (of a quality, symptom, etc.); transfer of property, quitclaim; legal opinion or submission; reference, cross-reference
English, today
remission
Built from
From Middle English remissioun (“release from duty; freeing of captives; mercy, pardon, respite; forgiveness; release from or reduction of penances; reduction in intensity (of a quality, symptom, etc.); transfer of property, quitclaim; legal opinion or submission; reference, cross-reference”)remiscioun, remisiun, remission, remissiun, remissyon, remyscioun, remyscyon, remyscyoun, remyssion, remyssioun, remyssyon, remyssyoun, remyssyoune, from Anglo-Norman remission, remissione, remissioun, remissiun and Middle French -, Old French remission (“forgiveness of sin; pardoning of an offence; postponement; cessation, suspension; diminishing or weakening of something; reduction of debt; reduction in intensity of a disease or symptom”) (modern French rémission), and their etymon Latin remissiō (“forgiveness; pardon of sins”), Latin remissiō (“release; sending back; easing off, relaxing, softening; reduction of debt; reduction in intensity of a disease or symptom”), from remittō (“to remit, send back; to diminish; to relax; to do without, forego”) + -siō. Remittō is derived from re- + mittō (“to cause to go; to send; to discharge, emit, let go, release; to throw; to extend, reach out; to announce, tell; to produce, yield; to attend, escort, guide; to dismiss, disregard; to end”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mey- (“to change, exchange; to change places, go past”) or (s)meyt- (“to throw”)). The English word is cognate with Catalan remissió, Italian remissioni, remissione (“remission; withdrawal of legal action; compliance, submission”), Old Occitan remessió, Portuguese remisson, remissão (“pardon; remission”), Spanish remisión (“remission”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA