peremptoryadj.adv.n.

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman peremptorie, peremtorie, paremptorie, perantorie, parentorie (compare Old French perhemptoire (1279; also as perhemptorie , noun, in an apparently isolated attestation), Middle French peremptoire , French péremptoire ) and its etymon classical Latin perēmptōrius destructive, deadly, mortal, (in legal context) that puts an end to, decisive (2nd cent. a.d.) < perēmpt- , past participial stem of perimere to kill, destroy (see perempt v.) + -ōrius -ory suffix². Compare Old Occitan peremptori (1463), Catalan peremptori (1272), Spanish perentorio (1262 as peremptorio), Italian perentorio (14th cent.).The word was introduced into French and English as a term of Roman Jurisprudence, in which use it was retained in Scots Law (in 16–17th centuries usually as peremptor adj., peremptor n.); thence, in transferred senses, it came to be used in English Law, and eventually came into general use. In sense A. 7 after the more literal Latin sense. N.E.D. (1905) also gives a pronunciation with word-initial stress (pe·rĕm^ptəri) /ˈpɛrəmptəri/. Metrical evidence suggests that this pronunciation was in existence in the late 16th cent. Johnson marks the stress on the second syllable, but Walker remarks that orthoepists are equally divided between the two pronunciations. In the 19th cent. most dictionaries mark the stress only on the initial syllable. D. Jones Eng. Pronouncing Dict. (1917) gives as the form the stressed on the second syllable as the main form, noting that the other is more usual when the word is used as a legal term (a comment which has been retained down to the 15th edition). Webster's New Internat. Dict. admits the form with second-syllable stress as an alternative in 1920, and makes it the first form in 1934.