scion

From Middle English sion, sioun, syon, scion, cion, from Old French cion, ciun, cyon, sion, from Frankish *kīþō, *kīþ, from Proto-Germanic *kīþô, *kīþą, *kīþaz (“sprout”), from Proto-Indo-European *geye- (“to split open, sprout”), same source as Old English ċīþ (“a young shoot; sprout; germ; sprig”), Old Saxon kīth (“sprout; germ”), Old High German kīdi (“offshoot; sprout; germ”). See also French scion and Picard chion.[1] Doublet of chit.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪən/[1]
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪ.ən/, /ˈsaɪ.ɑn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪən

scion (plural scions)

1. A descendant, especially a first-generation descendant of a distinguished family.
   • 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 15:

     No senate seats in council for the dead; no scion of a time honoured dynasty pants to rule over the inhabitants of a charnel house; the general's hand is cold, and the soldier has his untimely grave dug in his native fields, unhonoured, though in youth.

   • 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 9, in Crime out of Mind‎:

     Rudolf was the bold, bad Baron of traditional melodrama. Irene was young, as pretty as a picture, fresh from a music academy in England. He was the scion of an ancient noble family; she an orphan without money or friends.

   • 1966, Sholem Aleichem, An Early Passover, paperback edition, Clifton Pub. Co., page 24:

     It was said to him that those people were the scions of Zion.

   • 1986, David Leavitt, The Lost Language of Cranes, paperback edition, Penguin, page 72:

     He could show his parents Eliot, scion of Derek Moulthorp, and then how could they say he was throwing his life away?

2. The heir to a throne.
3. A guardian.
4. (botany) A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting; a shoot or twig in a general sense.
   • 1613, G[ervase] M[arkham], “Of the Setting or Planting of the Cyons or Branches of Most Sorts of Fruit-trees”, in The English Husbandman, […], revised edition, London: […] [Augustine Matthews and John Norton] for Henry Taunton, […], published 1635, →OCLC, 2nd part (Containing the Art of Planting, Grafting, and Gardening, […]), page 132:

     [If] you finde a certaine miſlike or conſumption in the plant, you ſhall immediatly vvith a ſharp knife cut the plant off ſlope-vviſe upvvard, about three fingers from the ground, and ſo let it reſt till the next ſpring, at vvhich time you ſhall behold nevv cyons iſſue from the roote, […]

   • 2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 681:

     He used to think that the plums in this country weren’t good enough, and so he has reformed them, grafting scion to rootstock.

One of three common words ending in -cion, the other two being coercion and suspicion.[2][3]

• “scion”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• Coins, ICONs, Nicos, cions, coins, icons, sonic

Inherited from Old French cion, ciun, from Frankish *kiþō, from Proto-Germanic *kīþô, *kīþą, from Proto-Indo-European *geye- (“to split open, to sprout”). Spelling influenced by scie (“saw”).

• IPA^(key): /sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophones: scions, Sion

scion m (plural scions)

1. scion (detached twig)

   Synonym: greffon

2. tip of a fishing rod

• (tip of fishing rod): canne

• “scion”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /ʃcɨ̞nˠ/, /ʃcɨ̞n̪ˠ/[1]

scion f (genitive singular scine, nominative plural sceana)

1. Ulster form of scian (“knife”)