agreeance

Agreeance is not a new form. It has been rising in frequency in Australia since the 1980s I think, usually in the phrase to be in agreeance with someone. It is as if we are making a distinction between an agreement, a document on the table, and agreeance, a state of mind. There is a logic to it.  Agreeance lines up beside similar words naming a state of being, such as compliance, insignificance, dominance, resistance, acceptance, and so on.

The Oxford English Dictionary records the first appearance of agreeance in 1512, followed by fairly regular occurrences until 1871. Then there is a gap until 1957 in British English with the last citation in 2011 coming from the Sun Herald in Sydney.  I would say that this perfectly regular form in English has been a minor variant in English until comparatively recently. Its success has been to split and share the meanings of agreement. This is confirmed by Google Ngram which gives a huge spike in frequency in 1840-50 followed by a decline, a slight uptake in the 1940s and a huge spike in frequency from 2000 on. British English gives us the 1840s spike and American English the 2000 spike.

I think that we can regard this as language change. The older generation may not like it but the younger generation is perfectly comfortable with it. Are we in agreeance?