How did 'sanction' come to have two opposite meanings?

Question

Sanction is an unusual ambiguous word to me. In some cases it means to approve some action, while in other cases it means to prohibit or punish some action; and there being near opposite meanings, context is especially essential for correct interpretation.

What is interesting to me is: historically, how did sanction come to capture two opposite meanings like this? The etymology seems to trace back to the single Latin word sanctio, meaning a decree. But did sanctio have strong opposing meanings or connotations like our modern word sanction? Or how and when did the divergence occur over time?

Answer 1

What's happened is that the verb to sanction has retained the original sense relating to endorsement/recognition by official decree.

But the noun sanctions (invariably pluralised, frequently imposed or applied) has come to mean measures taken by authority (often, multiple cooperating authorities) to discourage unsanctioned activities. By default, it's usually governments restricting trade in certain goods and services with some other nation, in order to put pressure on its government.

There is also the "positive" singular noun give (ones) sanction, but as that link shows, it's rapidly declined as the "negative" plural noun impose sanctions has gained currency.

Although superficially this looks odd, in practice there's unlikely to be any confusion because the verb / plural noun distinction is almost always made.

Having said all that, usage does change. Increasing numbers of younger speakers rarely hear the verb or singular noun form with positive associations, and they effectively "back-form" a new verb form they want to mean to impose sanctions. @Jay has identified a few such usages already in "print", and much as they make me cringe, doubtless there will be more in future.

Answer 2

I agree, it's a very curious word.

I just checked http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sanction to see if it offered any clarification, and the answer seems to be "not much".

Note their definition #2 for the verb form, "To encourage or tolerate by indicating approval." Then right below it is definition #3, "To penalize, especially for violating a moral principle or international law."

In practice, to tell which it means you have to read the context. "The government officially sanctions the use of solar power and offers numerous special tax breaks to encourage it." Versus, "The government has officially sanctioned the use of incandescent light bulbs, and they will no longer be permitted to be sold after 2012." [After some research, I do not stand by that last example.]

There are several words in English that are their own antonym. I find them rather amusing, myself.

Update

In reply to FumbleFingers: I'm not sure what you would define as an "authoritative source", but here are a few examples of use of the word "sanctioned" that I've managed to find in a quick search:

A press release from the U.S. State Department: "Seven Companies Sanctioned Under the Amended Iran Sanctions Act". These companies were penalized.

Headline from the UK Guardian (newspaper): "Air pollution in Britain: state-sanctioned mass poisoning". The state approved the "mass poisoning".

Jerusalem Post: "Normal China-Iran business ties shouldn't be sanctioned" Read the article and it's clear that they mean that such business ties shouldn't be penalized.

Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY): "Union sorority sanctioned over drinking at Oct. 7 party". Meaning they were penalized.

Washington Post: "Secret U.S. memo sanctioned killing of Aulaqi". U.S. approved it.

Catholic Charities web site: "Only approved sanctioned events are posted on our listing." (describing youth athletic activies) The organization approves these events.

Human Rights First web site: "Yemeni Government Contracted With U.N. Sanctioned Arms Dealer". The article indicates that the UN criticized the arms dealer in question.

Huffington Post: "The Pakistani government 'sanctioned' the killing of a journalist last month, the top U.S. military official said Thursday ..." They're saying the government approved the killing.

news.yahoo.com: "How widespread is teacher-sanctioned cheating?" Meaning teachers approving of cheating.

(I don't think that all of the above sources are "authoritative" in the sense that I believe their content to be accurate and unbiased, but they are all people whom one would reasonably expect to be competent writers.)

After going through dozens and dozens of examples, I come down to observing this pattern: If you say that a person or an organization was sanctioned, that means that they were penalized or some disapproval of them was expressed. If you say that an action or event was sanctioned, that means it was approved.

I thought that I had read examples in the past where it said that an action was sanctioned meaning that it was prohibited, but I am not able to find a quote like that from a grammatically-reputable source now, so I withdraw that portion of my answer above.

Answer 3

A sanction is only negative when it is against something - so sanction does not have two opposite meanings, it's just that sanctions against is the more usual term.

Sanction can be a verb or a noun.

When it is a verb, e.g.

I sanction this action

then sanction is positive, giving approval of an action. This is the same as the verb form of decree - when you decree something you are affirming its truthfulness or putting in place some rule or law, which is a positive action.

When sanction is used as a noun, it requires a direction, for or against, and this gives it its negative or positive connotation.

Negative:

Sanctions were taken against [rogue state] by the UN today.

Positive:

Sanctions were put in place to allow for trade between Taiwan and the US.

In the noun sense, then, it harks back to its origin decree, which similarly is a neutral noun.