Obedience
Middle English: via Old French from Latin oboedientia, from the verb oboedire (see obey).
wiktionary
From Middle English obedience, from Anglo-Norman obedience, from Old French obedience (modern French obédience), from Latin oboedientia. Cognate with obeisance.
etymonline
obedience (n.)
c. 1200, "the practice or virtue of submission to a higher power or authority;" late 14c., "dutiful compliance with a command or law," from Old French obedience "obedience, submission" (12c.), from Latin oboedientia "obedience," abstract noun from oboedientem (nominative oboediens) "obedient, compliant," present participle of oboedire "to obey" (see obey). In reference to dog training from 1930.
It has been a constant remark, that free countries have ever paid the heaviest taxes. The obedience of a free people to general laws, however hard they bear, is ever more perfect than that of slaves to the arbitrary will of a prince. [Alexander Hamilton to James Duane, Sept. 3, 1780]
