notorious
9 March 2026
Usage manuals like to point out that notorious refers to someone or something of unfavorable reputation and that the word should not be used to mean merely famous or notable. While this is true to an extent, like many questions of usage the answer is more complicated, and in fact few writers actually use the word mistakenly.
Notorius comes into English from a Medieval Latin word meaning famous, well-known, but it could also carry a negative connotation, infamous. When it was originally adopted into English it carried both of these connotations, the value-neutral one and the negative one. The adjective notorious isn’t recorded in English until the 1530s, but the adverb notoriously appears several decades earlier, around 1495, in a bill of attainder for Gerald fitz Thomas, earl of Kildare for treason and other crimes. Since adjectives generally predate their adverbial forms it is believed that the adjective is at least this old:
All we [which] wt [with] dyverse and many greate and horrible tresons, Rebellyons conceylmentes and conspiraces by him don & commytted contrary to his faith and allegeance be notoryously and openly knowne by due examynacon, and perfectly understanden to all the Lordes of this land and comynes of the same.
And we have this from a 1512 law granting a subsidy to King Henry VIII:
FOR ASMOCHE as it ys openly and notoryously knowen unto all p[er]sones of Cristes Religion, That Lewes the Frensche Kyng adversary unto owre moste drede Sovereigne and naturall liege Lorde Kyng Herry the viij and to hys realme of Englande hathe moved and styred and dayly moveth & styreth by all the subtyle meanes to hys powre to sett and bryng scisme variaunce and asmoche as in hym lyeth studyeth the meane of contynuall errour to be had in the Churche of Cryste.
In both of these examples the overall context may be a negative one, but the adverb notoriously is being used in with a value-neutral connotation, meaning simply openly, well known.
Another law book, this time from 1534, has two uses of the adjective notorious, and again both are in a negative context but the word itself has a value-neutral connotation. From the Constitutions Prouincialles, and of Otho and Octhobone:
LEt ther be in euery deanerye .ii. or .iii. men, hauynge god before theyr eyes, whych beynge appoynted at the commau[n]dement of the byshoppe or his officyalles maye denunce vnto them the open and notorious excesses of the prelates, & other clerkes.
And:
The preste may not inquyre the names of the persons with whom the co[n]fytent hath synned, but after confession he may inquyre, whether he were clerk or lay monke or preste or deane, & alwayes the greater crymes & specially suche as be notorious must be reserued to the hyer prelates
Very quickly, however, the word started being associated with fame of an unsavory or infamous nature. The 1549 Book of Common Prayer, for example, uses notorious twice. The first of these is again in a negative context but with the word itself carrying a value-neutral connotation:
And if any of those be an open and notorious euill liuer, so that the congregacion by hym is offended, or haue doen any wrong to his neighbours, by worde, or dede: The Curate shall cal hym, & aduertise hym, in any wise not to presume to the lordes table, vntill he haue openly declared hymselfe, to haue truly repented, and amended his former naughtie life.
And with the notorious itself carrying a negative connotation:
BRethre[n], in the primatiue churche there was a godlye discipline, that at the begynning of lente suche persones as were notorious sinners, were put to open penaunce, and punished in this worlde, that theyr soules myght be saued in the daye of the Lorde.
It was from oft-read uses like this that notorious acquired its unsavory reputation. But the sense of notorious with neutral, or even favorable, connotations did not go away and remains in use today. There is, however, a subtlety in its use.
When used to describe a person or persons, notorious carries the negative or infamous connotation, even if it is used humorously or in a mildly deprecating fashion, as when, for instance, Harry Truman writes in his diary of 20 September 1945:
We arrived in the Capital City at 7:45 P.M., E.S.T., and Alben and I had our pictures taken, as is usual when notorious persons leave or arrive in cities.
Almost two decades later, Truman uses the word again in his diary to describe himself, only this time it is even clearer that he is being playful with the word’s connotations. From 12 September 1962:
My home town, Independence, the County Seat of Jackson County, Missouri, is in my opinion the best place for a retired Missouri farmer to live. That state has had three “notorious” characters—Mark Twain, Jesse James and myself. The other two are shoveling coal for Pluto and I’m all that’s left to appear for them.
But when used to describe things or situations, notorious can have the neutral meaning of simply noted or famous. It can be pejorative, but such connotation has to be derived from the context and not simply from the word itself. Thus you get descriptions of “notorious dance marathons” of the 1920s or of E=mc2 as a “notorious equation.”
Most writers and native speakers of English understand this subtle distinction, even if it is only a tacit understanding, and will seldom use notorious incorrectly.
Sources:
“Attainder of Gerald, Earl of Kildare.” In Agnes Conway, ed. Henry VII’s Relations with Scotland and Ireland, 1495–1498. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1932, 217. Lambeth, Carew MSS 603, fol. 177. Archive.org.
The Booke of the Commone Prayer and Administracion of the Sacramentes. London: Edward Whitchurch and Nicholas Hill, 1549, sig. fol. cc., fol. clii.v. ProQuest: Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Constitutions Prouincialles, and of Otho and Octhobone. London: Robert Redman, 1534, 76r, 94v. ProQuest: Early English Books Online (EEBO).
“De subsidio regi concess” (1512). 4 Hen. VIII. C. 19. In The Statutes of the Realm, vol. 3. London: 1817, 74. Archive.org.
Latham, Ronald E., David R. Howlett, and Richard K. Ashdowne, eds. Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Oxford: British Academy, 2013, s.v. notorius. Brepolis: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. Springfield, Massachusetts: 1994, s.v. notorious, 668–69. Archive.org.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, December 2003, s.v. notorious, adj.1 & adv., notoriously, adv.
Truman, Harry S. Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman. Robert H. Ferrell, ed. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1980, 67, 406. Archive.org.
Photo credit: Steve Petteway/Supreme Court of the United States, 2016. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.
