Suffrage is the right to vote. Universal suffrage, women's suffrage, extend the suffrage.
It expanded in stages nearly everywhere — property, then sex, then age — and New Zealand was first to give it to women in 1893. The word once meant a prayer offered on somebody's behalf, and the sense moved through supporting a candidate to voting for one.
1nounsuffrageThe right to vote.
“The campaign for women's suffrage lasted for decades.”
suffrage is a right.
Latin suffragium means a vote or support. In Middle English it first meant prayers offered on another's behalf.
la-cla
suffrāgium
Old French
suffrage
Middle French
suffrage
Middle English
suffrage — prayers or pleas on behalf of another
English, today
suffrage
From Middle English suffrage (“prayers or pleas on behalf of another”), from Middle French suffrage, from Old French suffrage, from la-cla suffrāgium. From Middle English suffrage (“prayers or pleas on behalf of another”), from Middle French suffrage (from Old French suffrage) and its etymon la-cla suffrāgium (“support, vote, right of voting”). The sense of "vote" or "right to vote" was directly derived from Classical Latin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA