/əˈplaɪ/
[verb] To put something to use for a particular purpose, or to make a formal request for something such as a job or a place at university. It can also mean to press or place something onto a surface.
Every time you 'apply' for a job, you are literally folding yourself toward the employer — the Latin root means to fold onto.
The story of 'apply' begins in ancient Rome, with the Latin verb 'applicare', which was built from two parts: the prefix 'ad-' meaning 'to' or 'toward', and 'plicare', meaning 'to fold' or 'to bend'. Together, the word carried the vivid physical sense of folding one thing onto another, pressing surfaces into contact. Sailors used it to describe bringing a ship close to shore, and builders used it to describe laying materials against a structure. The original image was entirely concrete — two things being brought together, touching, connecting.
The word passed from Latin into Old French as 'aplier', keeping its sense of pressing or attaching something to a surface. Old French was the language of culture, law, and administration in medieval Europe, and it carried 'aplier' westward into England following the Norman Conquest of 1066. By the late 14th century, Middle English writers had absorbed the word as 'applien', and it began appearing in texts concerned with effort and attention — you could 'apply' your mind to a problem just as you might press a cloth to a wound.
This shift from physical contact to mental effort is one of the most interesting movements in the word's history. Once 'apply' entered the world of thought and learning, it grew quickly. By the 15th and 16th centuries, English speakers were using it to describe directing skill, knowledge, or energy toward a goal. The Renaissance, with its deep enthusiasm for putting classical learning to practical use, helped cement this intellectual sense of the word. To apply oneself became a mark of good character — focused, earnest, productive.
The sense of making a formal request — applying for a job, a loan, or a university place — developed more gradually, emerging clearly in the 16th and 17th centuries as institutions became more organised and paperwork more common. This usage carries a faint echo of the original Latin: when you apply for something, you are, in a sense, pressing yourself toward an opportunity, leaning in and making contact with a system or an authority.
The family of words descending from Latin 'plicare' is remarkably large and surprising. The same root gives us 'complicate' (from Latin 'complicare', meaning to fold together), 'implicate' (to fold inward), 'explicit' (fully unfolded, therefore clear), and 'implicit' (folded inside, therefore hidden). Even 'reply' comes from Latin 'replicare' → Old French 'replier' → English 'reply', meaning to fold back — as if an answer returns your words to you. And 'diploma' comes from Greek 'diploun', to double or fold, since official documents were folded in two. All of these words share that ancient image of folding.
Today, 'apply' works in an impressive range of situations — you apply sunscreen, apply pressure, apply for a mortgage, or apply a rule. What is remarkable is how all of these uses remain faithful to the original idea: bringing one thing into contact with another, directing something toward a target. The Latin sailors pressing their ship to the shore would not find the modern word entirely strange. The folding motion is still there, just spread across a much wider world.