Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How did “negotiable” mean “a good or security whose ownership is easily transferable”?

I knew merely the first most popular meaning of negotiate. I never knew this second legal meaning A document of an amount of money, or a title, which is readily transferable to another. Diff...

1 answer  ·  posted 3y ago by PSTH‭  ·  last activity 3y ago by Jirka Hanika‭

Question etymology
#1: Initial revision by user avatar PSTH‭ · 2021-04-11T05:54:14Z (almost 3 years ago)
How did “negotiable” mean “a good or security whose ownership is easily transferable”?
I knew merely [the first most popular meaning of *negotiate*](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/negotiable.asp). I never knew  [this second legal meaning](http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/N/NegotiableInstrument.aspx)

>A document of an amount of money, or a title, which is readily transferable to another. 

[Difference between Transferability and Negotiability - SRD Law Notes](https://www.srdlawnotes.com/2018/01/difference-between-transferability-and.html)

> Negotiability also gives a right to the possessor of the property to transfer it to anyone but for consideration. The Negotiator is not required to establish his credentials. In negotiability, the property is accepted in good faith.

Where did this legal meaning hail from? [Etymonline](https://www.etymonline.com/word/negotiate) doesn't discuss it.

>### negotiate [16] 

>The etymological notion
underlying *negotiate* is of ‘not being at leisure’,
and hence of ‘being busy’. The word comes
ultimately from Latin *negōtium* ‘business’, which was a compound formed from the
negative particle *neg* and *ōtium* ‘leisure’ (source
of English otiose [18]). From it was derived the
verb *negōtiārī* ‘do business’, which passed into
English as *negotiate*. There is some early
evidence in the derivatives negotiation and
negotiator that the original Latin sense of the
word survived into English, but in the verb itself
it had already developed via ‘transact business’
and ‘hold business discussions’ to ‘hold
discussions’ generally.

*Word Origins* (2005 2e) by John Ayto. p 347 Right column.