‘Ransom’ has long meant ‘buy back,’ but it eventually took on the special meaning of paying off kidnappers and, these days, computer hackers
The cyberattack that crippled the operations of Colonial Pipeline this week—leading to gas shortages throughout the southeastern U.S.—was the latest example of a relatively new kind of security threat. In a “ransomware” attack, hackers use malicious code to hijack a computer system and hold its data hostage for a payment. (Colonial Pipeline announced Wednesday that it was resuming operations. The Wall Street Journal reported the firm had paid the hackers.)
A recent surge in ransomware attacks puts a 21st-century spin on an age-old concept: capturing someone or something and demanding a payment, or ransom, in return. The word we use for such financial extortion has its own peculiar back story.
“Ransom” is historically related to another common English word, “redemption.” The two words are known as “doublets” because they share a common source but entered into English by different paths. “Redemption” is much closer in form to their shared Latin root, “redemptio,” meaning “buying back.” In classical times, the word could refer to freeing a prisoner or captive by making a payment, such as when Julius Caesar was captured by pirates in the Aegean Sea. As his biographer Plutarch recounted, Caesar paid the kidnappers—but later returned and had them crucified.
The 1874 abduction of a Philadelphia child helped bring ‘ransom’ into wider use, as well as phrases like ‘ransom money’ and ‘ransom letter.’
With the advent of Christianity, “redemptio” and its related forms took on a more theological spin, used in the Vulgate, the official Latin translation of the Bible, for deliverance from damnation and atonement for sins. Meanwhile, the word took a different trajectory through French, which, in its typical smoothing over of Latin syllables, turned “redemptio” into “rançon.” In English, that became “ranson” and ultimately “ransom.” (Something similar happened with the word “random,” from Old French “randon.”)
When it first entered English, starting in the 13th century, “ransom” could have a range of meanings, including the more religious sense of salvation for humanity. ( Jesus Christ, in the King James version of the First Epistle to Timothy, “gave himself a ransom for all.”) But over time, “ransom” grew more focused, referring specifically to a price for releasing a captive or hostage, or the act of paying that price. “King’s ransom” came to mean a very large sum of money, enough to secure the release of a captured monarch. That scenario actually played out in 1193 when King Richard I of England was held captive by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, and Richard’s mother Eleanor of Aquitane had to pay a ransom to release him.
That extortionary usage began to wane in early modern English, but it was revived by a popular work of fiction: Sir Walter Scott’s 1819 novel “ Ivanhoe. ” Scott used “ransom” more than 60 times in the book, as both a noun and verb. Since “Ivanhoe” was set in 12th-century England, the word must have seemed like an old-fashioned throwback to readers at the time, but some high-profile kidnapping cases would thrust “ransom” firmly into modern parlance.
