[betty boop]

The word seems to have entered into English between 1300 and 1350.

Can I get a cite here, Doc? Meanwhile, I'll track down mine. :^)

Just a friendly little to-and-fro here, dear friend.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Random House Dictionary

[Doctor Stochastic]

Also this link.

[js1138]

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=science

http://www.infofocalpoint.com/science.html

[ToryHeartland]

The word seems to have entered into English between 1300 and 1350. // Can I get a cite here, Doc? Meanwhile, I'll track down mine. :^)

I think you may all be speaking a little bit at cross-purposes.

If the real question is, "When did the word 'science' enter the English language?" then the answer is even earlier than 1300, for by Chaucer's day it was current, as in his Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1385); see verses I:64-70, as follows:

Now fel it so that in the town ther was

Dwellynge a lord of gret auctorite

A gret devyn, that clepid was Calkas

That in science so expert was that he

Knew wel that Troie sholde destroied be,

By answere of his god, that highte thus,

Daun Phebus or Appollo Delphicus.

[my emphasis]. As the above shows, however, this clearly isn't quite the same as the modern usage of the word 'science,' so I suspect the actual question intended was, "when did the word science take on its modern meaning?"

The full-fat Oxford English Dictionary is the most authoritative source I think you will find, giving earliest printed references to each occurance of each variant of meaning--of which there are dozens. The entry in the full OED runs to two and half pages of tiny print, I can't hope to copy it here. It is available on-line, but it is a subscription-only service, I believe.

It's a question of first stating which meaning of science is intended, and then running down the first recorded instance of 'science' used in that sense.