I

I [OE] Essentially all the Indo-European languages share the same first person singular pronoun, although naturally it has diverged in form over the millennia. French has je, for example, Italian io, Russian ja, and Greek eg. The prehistoric Germanic pronoun was *eka, and this has produced German ich, Dutch ik, Swedish jag, Danish jeg, and English I. The affirmative answer aye ‘yes’ [16] is probably ultimately the same word as I.

AYE, EGO

ibex see IVY

ice [OE] Ice is a widespread word among the Germanic languages – German has eis, for instance. Dutch ijs, and Swedish and Danish is – but beyond that its connections are somewhat dubious. Some of the more easterly Indo-European languages have or had similar-looking forms, including Old Iranian isu- ‘frosty, icy’, modern Iranian yak ‘ice’, and Afghan asa ‘frost’, which suggest the possibility of a common source.

Iceberg [18] was perhaps an adaptation of Danish and Norwegian isberg, literally ‘ice mountain’.

ichneumon [16] Ichneumon comes from a Greek word which meant literally ‘tracker’. This was ikhneúmn , a derivative of íkhnos ‘track, footstep’. Aristotle used it as the name for a species of wasp that hunted spiders, and it was adopted into English in this sense for the ichneumon fly, a wasplike insect with parasitic larvae, in the 17th century. Its original English application, however, was to a variety of African mongoose which ‘tracks down’ or hunts out crocodile eggs.

ichthyology see FISH

icicle icicle [14] Historically, icicle is a tautology, meaning literally ‘ice icicle’. It originated in Middle English as a compound of ice and ickel ‘icicle’. This word, which survived dialectally into the 20th century as ickle, goes back to Old English gicel, which in turn was descended from a prehistoric Germanic *jakulaz (source also of modern Icelandic jökull ‘glacier’).

icon [16] The etymological idea underlying icon is of ‘similarity’. It comes via Latin cn from Greek eikn, which was derived from a prehistoric base meaning ‘be like’. From ‘likeness, similarity’, eikn progressed semantically via ‘image’ to ‘portrait, picture’. That was the general sense in which English acquired the word (‘The Icon, or forme of the same birde, I have caused thus to bee figured’, John Bossewell, Workes of Armorie 1572), and it was not until the early 19th century that the particular application to a ‘sacred portrait in the Eastern Orthodox church’ entered the language.

iconoclast [17] The original iconoclasts were members of the Eastern Orthodox church in the 8th and 9th centuries AD who were opposed to the use or worship of religious images. In more extreme cases their opposition took the form of smashing icons (the word iconoclast comes via medieval Latin from medieval Greek eikonoklásts, a compound formed from eikn ‘icon’ and the verb klan ‘break’). The term subsequently came to be applied to extreme Protestants in England in the 16th and 17th centuries who expressed their disapproval of graven images (and popish practices in general) in similar ways. Its general use for an ‘attacker of orthodoxy’ dates from the early 19th century.

idea [16] Etymologically, an idea is the ‘look’ of something – it comes ultimately from the same source as produced the Greek verb ídein ‘see’. Greek idé itself was used by Plato in the specialized sense ‘archetypal form of something’, which survives in the derived adjective ideal [17], but as far as the modern English noun is concerned, its sense ‘notion, mental conception’ developed (in Greek) via ‘look, appearance’, ‘image’, and ‘mental image’. Ideology [18] is a derivative, coined originally in French at the end of the 18th century.

IDEOLOGY, IDOL

identity [16] The historical meaning of identity is best preserved in its derivative identical [17] – ‘the same’. For its ultimate source was Latin idem ‘same’, a pronoun (formed from id ‘it, that one’ with the suffix -dem) used in English since the 17th century for referring to a previously cited author or text. This formed the basis of late Latin identits, which meant literally ‘sameness’; the main meaning of its English descendant identity, ‘individuality, set of definitive characteristics’, arose from the notion of something always being the same or always being itself (rather than something else).

ideology see IDEA

idiosyncracy [17] Greek idios meant ‘of a particular person, personal, private, own’. Among the words it has contributed to English are idiom [16] (etymologically ‘one’s own particular way of speaking’), idiot, and idiosyncracy. This was a compound formed in Greek with súgkrsis, itself a compound noun made up of sún ‘together’ and krsis ‘mixture’ (a relative of English crater). Sugkrsis originally meant literally ‘mixture’, but it was later used metaphorically for ‘mixture of personal characteristics, temperament’, and so idiosúgkrsis was ‘one’s own particular mix of traits’.

IDIOM, IDIOT

idiot [13] The etymological idea underlying idiot is of a ‘private individual’. That is what Greek idits (a derivative of ídios ‘personal, private’) originally meant. It was extended to the ordinary ‘common man’, particularly a lay person without any specialized knowledge, and so came to be used rather patronizingly for an ‘ignorant person’. It is this derogatory sense that has come down to English via Latin idiot and Old French idiot.

IDIOSYNCRACY

idle [OE] ‘Lazy’ is only a secondary meaning of idle. It originally meant ‘useless, worthless’ (as in ‘idle threats’), and the sense ‘lazy’ did not develop until the 13th century (the Old English words for ‘lazy’ were slow and slack). Idle is shared by other West Germanic languages, and its relatives (German eitel ‘vain, futile’ and Dutch ijdel ‘vain, useless, conceited’) point up its original English meaning, but it is not known what its ultimate origins are.

idol [13] Greek eidos meant ‘form, shape’ (it came from the same root as idé), source of English idea). From it was derived eídlon, which originally meant ‘appearance’, and in particular ‘apparition, phantom’. It developed from there to ‘image’, either a ‘mental image’ or a ‘physical image’, such as a ‘statue’; and in the early Christian era it and its Latin descendant dlum were used for an ‘image of a false god’. English acquired the word via Old French idole or idele.

Another English offspring of Greek eidos, in the sense ‘picture’, is idyll [17], which was borrowed from the diminutive form eidúllion ‘little picture’, hence ‘small descriptive poem’.

IDEA, IDYLL

if [OE] The Old English version of if was gif, but its initial g was closer to modern English y in pronunciation than to g, and the conjunction gradually evolved through Middle English yif to if. It is not known where it ultimately came from; it is evidently connected with Old High German iba ‘condition’ and Old Norse ef ‘doubt’, but whether it started life as a noun like these or was from the beginning a conjunction is not clear. Its surviving Germanic relatives are German ob ‘whether’ and Dutch of ‘if’.

ignite [17] The Latin word for ‘fire’ was ignis (it has been traced back to a prehistoric Indo-European *egni- or *ogni-, which also produced Sanskrit agni- and Lithuanian ugnìs ‘fire’). From it were derived the verb ignre ‘set light to’, source of English ignite, and the adjective igneus, from which English got igneous [17]. Another contribution the Latin noun has made to English is ignis fatuus ‘will-o’-the-wisp’ [16], literally ‘foolish fire’, so called perhaps from its erratic flickering, as if scatter-brained.

ignoble see NOBLE

ignore [17] The Latin verb for ‘not know’, and hence ‘disregard’, was gnrre, which was formed with a negative prefix from the stem gn- ‘know’ (ultimate source also of English narrate). From it English got ignore, and from its derivative gnrantia the noun ignorance [13]. Its first person present plural was gnrmus ‘we do not know’. This was originally used in English in the 16th century as a legal term, in the sense ‘we ignore’, used by a Grand Jury in rejecting an indictment for lack of evidence. Not until the early 17th century was it applied to an ‘ignorant person’.

NARRATE

iliac see JADE

ilk [OE] Historically ilk means simply ‘same’. Its Old English form was ilca, which was ultimately a compound made up of the demonstrative particle *i- ‘that (same)’ and *lk- ‘form’ (as in the English verb like). It had virtually died out by the mid-16th century as a straight synonym for same, but one context in which it survived, particularly in Scottish English, was in the increasingly fossilized phrase of that ilk ‘of the same’, which was used originally to express the notion that someone’s name was the same as that of the place they came from: thus Nairn of that ilk would have signified ‘someone called Nairn from a place called Nairn’. In due course it came to be applied specifically to landed Scottish families, and so strong did the connection with ‘family’ become that by the 19th century we see the first signs of ilk being treated as if it were a noun, meaning ‘family’. That led on in time to an even more general sense ‘type, sort’, capable of use in such expressions as ‘of a different ilk’.

ill [12] ‘Sick’ is not the original meaning of ill. To start with it meant ‘bad’ (a sense which survives, of course, in contexts such as ‘ill-will’, ‘ill-mannered’, etc), and ‘sick’ did not come on the scene until the 15th century. The word was borrowed from Old Norse illr, which is something of a mystery: it has other modern descendants in Swedish illa and Danish ilde ‘badly’, but its other relations are highly dubious (Irish olc has been compared) and no one knows where it originally came from. The sense ‘sick’ was probably inspired by an impersonal usage in Old Norse which meant literally ‘it is bad to me’.

LIKE

illicit see LEISURE

illuminate [16] Etymologically, illuminate is a parallel construction to enlighten. It was formed in the late Latin period from the prefix in- and lmen ‘light’ (source of English luminous). The past participle of the resulting illuminre gave English illuminate. The medieval-sounding sense ‘illustrate manuscripts’ is actually quite recent, replacing in the 18th century the parallel formation enlumine, acquired by English in the 14th century via Old French enluminer from medieval Latin inlminre. Illumine [14] came via Old French illuminer. Illustrate is closely related.

ILLUSTRATE, LUMINOUS

illusion [14] The notion of ‘play’ is at the etymological heart of illusion (as indeed of its close relatives allusion [16], delusion [15], and elude [16]). It came via Old French from Latin illsi, a derivative of illdere ‘make fun of’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and ldere ‘play’ (source of English ludicrous [17]). In classical Latin illsi meant ‘mockery’, and no semantic shift seems to have taken place until post-classical times, when it moved to ‘deceit’ (a sense originally taken over by English).

ALLUSION, DELUSION, ELUDE, LUDICROUS

illustrate [16] Illustrate is closely related etymologically to illuminate. It goes back to Latin illustrre, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and lustrre ‘make bright’, which came from the same base as produced Latin lmen (source of illuminate) and lx ‘light’, and indeed English light. Originally it meant literally ‘throw light on’, but this eventually passed via ‘elucidate’ to, in the 17th century, ‘exemplify’ and ‘add pictures to’. More of the original sense of ‘brightness’ survives, albeit metaphorically, in illustrious [16], which comes from Latin illustris ‘shining, clear’, a back-formation from illustrre.

ILLUMINATE, ILLUSTRIOUS, LIGHT, LUMINOUS, LUSTRE

image [13] Latin img meant a ‘likeness of something’ (it probably came from the same source as imitate). It subsequently developed a range of secondary senses, such as ‘echo’ and ‘ghost’, which have not survived the journey via Old French into English, but the central ‘likeness’ remains in place. Derived from the noun in Latin was the verb imginr ‘form an image of in one’s mind, picture to oneself’, which became English imagine [14]. (Latin img, incidentally, was used in the 1760s by the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus for an ‘adult insect’ – based on the Latin sense ‘natural shape’, the idea being that the insect had achieved its final perfect form after various pupal forms – and English took the term over at the end of the 18th century.)

IMITATE

imbecile [16] Etymologically imbecile means ‘without support’, hence ‘weak’. It came via French from Latin imbcillus, a compound adjective formed from the prefix in- ‘not’ and an unrecorded *bcillum, a diminutive variant of baculum ‘stick’ (from which English gets bacillus and bacterium). Anyone or anything without a stick or staff for support is by extension weak, and so the Latin adjective came to mean ‘weak, feeble’. This broadened out to ‘weak in mind’, and was even used as a noun for ‘weak-minded person’, but English did not adopt these metaphorical uses until the late 18th century.

BACILLUS, BACTERIUM

imitate [16] Latin imitri meant ‘make a copy of’. It was formed from the base *im-, which also lies behind the Latin ancestors of English emulate [16] and image; all three words share the basic meaning element ‘likeness’. English acquired the word via the Latin past participle imittus.

EMULATE, IMAGE

immaculate [15] A macula in Latin was a ‘spot’ or ‘stain’ (as well as a ‘hole in a net’, which gave English the mail of chain mail). Hence anything that was immacultus (an adjective formed with the negative prefix in-) was ‘spotless’ – ‘perfect’.

CHAINMAIL

immediate see MEDIUM

immense see MEASURE

immerse see MERGE

imminent see PROMINENT

immolate see MILL

immune [15] The -mune of immune is the same as that of remunerate and of commune (and hence of common). It represents Latin mnis ‘ready to give service’. The addition of the negative prefix in- gave immnis, which in classical Latin denoted literally ‘exempt from a service, charge, etc’, and hence by metaphorical extension ‘free from something, devoid of something’. This general sense still survives, of course, in English (as in ‘grant immunity from prosecution’); and the more specific ‘not liable to infection’ did not emerge until as recently as the 1870s, probably under the influence of French or German.

COMMON, COMMUNE, REMUNERATE

immure see MURAL

imp [OE] Old English impe meant ‘new shoot, sapling’. Its ultimate source was medieval Latin impotus ‘graft’, a borrowing from Greek émphutos, which itself was an adjective derived from the verb emphúein ‘implant’. In the early Middle English period it began to be transferred from plants to people, carrying its connotations of ‘newness’ or ‘youth’ with it, so that by the 14th century it had come to mean ‘child’. And in the 16th century, in a development similar to that which produced the now obsolete sense of limb ‘naughty child’, it was applied to ‘mischievous children, children of the Devil’, and hence to ‘mischievous or evil spirits’.

impair [14] If to repair something is to ‘put it right’, it seems logical that to impair something should be to ‘make it wrong’. In fact, though, logic has nothing to do with it, for the two words are quite unrelated. Repair comes ultimately from Latin parre ‘make ready’, whereas impair goes back via Old French empeirier to Vulgar Latin *impjrre ‘make worse’.

impeach [14] Impeach has nothing to do with peaches. In fact it is closely related to impede, and indeed originally meant ‘impede’ in English. Both verbs comes ultimately from Latin ps ‘foot’. Impede [17] goes back to Latin impedre, a compound verb based on ps which originally meant literally ‘tie the feet together’. Impeach, on the other hand, comes via Old French empechêr (ancestor of modern French empêcher) from late Latin impedicre ‘fetter, entangle, ensnare’, a compound verb based on the noun pedica ‘fetter’, which itself came from the same base as ps. Its original meaning ‘impede, prevent’ survived in English until the late 17th century (‘a Ditch of sufficient breadth, and depth, to impeach the Assaults of an Enemy’, William Leybourn. Cursus Mathematicus 1690). Its use for ‘charge, accuse’ arose in the 14th century from an erroneous association with Latin impetere ‘attack, accuse’ (source of English impetuous).

FOOT, IMPEDE, PEDAL

impede see PEDAL

impend see PENDULUM

imperative see EMPIRE

imperial see EMPIRE

impersonate see PERSON

impetuous [14] Etymologically, impetuous means ‘having impetus’. It comes from Latin impetusus, a derivative of the noun impetus ‘attack’ (source of English impetus [17]), which in turn was based on impetere ‘attack’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix in-‘against’ and petere ‘go towards, seek, attack’ (source of English appetite, compete, perpetuate, petition, petulant, and repeat). The etymological idea underlying both words is thus of ‘rushing towards something with great violence or aggression’. Another member of the same family is impetigo [16], the name of a sort of skin disease. This was borrowed from Latin impetg, whose medical meaning was a specialization of an earlier and much more general ‘attack’ (as in ‘an attack of eczema’).

APPETITE, COMPETE, IMPETUS, PERPETUATE, PETULANT, REPEAT

implacable see PLEASE

implement implement [15] The idea underlying implement is of ‘filling up’. It comes ultimately from Latin implre, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix in- and plre ‘fill’ (as in English complete). This originally meant ‘fill up’, and hence ‘fulfil’, but in post-classical times, under the influence of implicre (source of English employ) it came to mean ‘use, employ’, and so the derived plural noun implmenta denoted ‘things used, equipment’. It was originally used in the plural in English too, and it was not until the 16th century that the singular ‘tool’ emerged. The original Latin sense ‘fulfil’ is preserved much more closely in the verb implement, which was an independent and considerably later introduction, first recorded in Scottish English in the 19th century. (From the same source come English complement and supplement.)

COMPLEMENT, COMPLETE, SUPPLEMENT

implicate see EMPLOY

implore see EXPLORE

imply see EMPLOY

important [16] Important and import (the opposite of export) come from the same source – Latin importre, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and portre ‘carry’ (as in English portable). Its original literal sense (as represented in the English verb import [16]) was ‘bring in’, but in the Middle Ages this developed metaphorically to ‘imply, mean’ (which is what French importer and Italian importare signify), and its present participle importns gave English important.

IMPORT, PORT, PORTABLE

impostor [16] An impostor is etymologically someone who ‘imposes’ on others. The word comes via French imposteur from late Latin impostor, a contraction of classical Latin impositor. This was a derivative of imponere ‘put on’, hence ‘inflict, deceive’ (a compound verb based on ponere ‘put, place’), which also gave English impose [15], impost ‘tax’ [16], and imposture [16]. It is the ‘deceive’ sense of imponere, of course, that has come through into impostor.

COMPOSE, DEPOSE, IMPOSE, POSITION

imprecation see PRAY

impregnable see PREY

impresario [18] Impresario has no etymological connection with ‘impressing’ people (often though it is mistakenly spelled impressario). It was borrowed from Italian, where it was a derivative of impresa ‘undertaking’. This in turn came from the verb imprendere ‘undertake’, which goes back to a hypothetical Vulgar Latin *imprendere (source of the archaic English emprise ‘enterprise’ [13]), a compound based on Latin prendere ‘take’. Hence an impresario is literally someone who ‘undertakes’ something.

impress see PRESS

improve [16] The -prove of improve has no direct connection with the verb prove, although the two have come to resemble each other over the centuries. It comes ultimately from late Latin prde ‘advantageous’ (source of English proud). This gave Old French prou ‘profit’, which was combined in Anglo-Norman with the causative prefix em- to produce the verb emprouer. This originally meant ‘turn to a profit, turn to one’s advantage’, a sense which survives in English in one or two fossilized contexts such as ‘improve the shining hour’. Modern English ‘make or get better’ developed in the 17th century.

PROUD

improvise [19] Etymologically, if you improvise something, it is because it has not been ‘provided’ for in advance. The word comes via French improviser from the Italian adjective improvviso ‘extempore’, a descendant of Latin imprvsus ‘unforeseen’. This in turn was formed from the negative prefix in- and the past participle of prvdere ‘foresee’ (source of English provide). The earliest recorded use of the verb in English is by Benjamin Disraeli in Vivian Grey 1826: ‘He possessed also the singular faculty of being able to improvise quotations’. (The closely related improvident ‘not providing for the future’ [16] preserves even more closely the sense of its Latin original.)

PROVIDE

impugn see PUGNACIOUS

in [OE] In is a widespread preposition amongst the Indo-European languages. Greek had en, Latin in (whence French and Italian en and Spanish in), and amongst modern languages German and Dutch have in, Swedish i, Welsh yn, and Russian v, all of which point back to an original Indo-European *en or *n. The adverb in was not originally the same word; it comes from a conflation of two Old English adverbs, inn and inne, both ultimately related to the preposition in. (An inn is etymologically a place ‘in’ which people live or stay.)

INN

inaugurate see AUGUR

incense English has two distinct words incense, but both come ultimately from the same source. The noun, ‘aromatic burnt substance’ [13], comes via Old French encens from late Latin incensum, a noun use of the verb incendere ‘set fire to’ (source of English incendiary [17]). This in turn was formed from a derivative of candre ‘glow’ (source of English candle). (From encens was derived Old French censier, which passed into English via Anglo-Norman as censer [13].) Besides the literal ‘set fire to’, incendere was used figuratively for ‘enrage’, which English acquired as the verb incense [15] via Old French.

CENSER, INCENDIARY

incest [13] Etymologically, incest is virtually the same word as unchaste. It was borrowed from Latin incestus, a noun use of an adjective formed from the negative prefix in- and castus ‘pure’ (source of English chaste). The Latin word denoted ‘unchastity’ in general, but in practice was often applied specifically to ‘sexual contact between close relatives’.

CHASTE

inch [OE] Inch and ounce both mean etymologically ‘one twelfth’, but while this ancestral sense has largely been lost sight of in the case of ounce, for inch it remains in force. The words’ common ancestor is Latin uncia, a term for a ‘twelfth part’ derived from unus ‘one’. This was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic as *ungkja, but it has not survived in any other Germanic language but English.

ONE, OUNCE

incident [15] An incident is literally that which ‘befalls’. In common with accident and occident, and a wide range of other English words, from cadaver to occasion, it comes ultimately from Latin cadere ‘fall’. This was combined with the prefix in- ‘on’ to produce incidere ‘fall on’, hence ‘befall, happen to’. Its present participial stem incident- passed into English either directly or via French. The use of a word that literally means ‘fall’ to denote the concept of ‘happening’ is quite a common phenomenon. It occurs also in befall and chance, and operates in other languages than English; Welsh digwydd ‘happen’, for instance, is derived from cwyddo ‘fall’.

ACCIDENT, CADENCE, CASE, OCCASION

incline [13] Latin -clnre (a relative of English lean, but itself only ever recorded in compounds) meant ‘bend, lean’. Add to this the prefix in- and you had inclnre ‘lean towards’. This was originally borrowed into English via Old French encliner as encline – a form which survived until the 17th century, when the latinized incline began to take over. The metaphorical use of the word to indicate a person’s disposition or preference dates back to Roman times.

LEAN

include [15] The idea of ‘shutting in’ or ‘enclosure’ is etymologically central to include – indeed, it is virtually the same word as enclose. It was borrowed from Latin incldere, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and claudere ‘shut’ (source of English close). (A probable Vulgar Latin descendant of incldere was *inclaudere, which passed into Old French as enclore. English took over its past participle enclose as the verb enclose [14].) The metaphorical sense ‘comprise’ was already developing in classical Latin.

CLOSE, ENCLOSE

increase [14] The -crease element in increase (which occurs also, of course, in its antonym decrease) means ‘grow’. It comes from Latin crscere ‘grow’ (source of English crescent), which combined with the prefix in- to produce incrscere ‘grow in, grow on’. This passed into Old French as encreistre, which English originally took over as encres. The Latin-style spelling, with in- instead of en-, was reintroduced in the 15th century. Derived from Latin incrscere was incrmentum ‘growth, increase’, which gave English increment [15].

CRESCENT, CREW, CROISSANT, DECREASE, INCREMENT

incubate [18] Latin incubre, the source of English incubate, meant literally ‘lie down on’. It was based on the verb cubre ‘lie’, which also produced English concubine and cubicle. The notion of ‘lying on eggs to hatch them’ seems later to have fed back into the simple verb cubre, which in this sense gave English couvade ‘male mimicking of child-bearing’ [19] (an anthropological term borrowed from French) and covey [14]. Another English descendant of incubre is incubus ‘male demon that has sex with a sleeping woman’ [14], literally ‘one who lies down on another’ (its counterpart is the succubus ‘female demon that has sex with a sleeping man’ [16], literally ‘one who lies down under another’).

The nasalized version of the stem of Latin cubre gave English incumbent [16] (which etymologically means ‘resting upon as a duty’) and recumbent [17].

CUBICLE, CONCUBINE, COVEY, INCUBUS, INCUMBENT, RECUMBENT, SUCCUBUS, SUCCUMB

incunabulum [19] An incunabulum is a book printed before 1501. But etymologically the word has nothing to do with books. It comes from the Latin plural noun incnbula, which had a range of meanings, including ‘swaddling clothes’, ‘cradle’, and ‘infancy’, which point back to its original source, Latin cnae ‘cradle’. Nineteenth-century antiquarians and bibliographers applied the term to early printed books since they represented the ‘infancy’ of book production.

incursion see COURSE

indefatigable see FATIGUE

indemnity see DAMAGE

indent Etymologically, English has two separate words indent, although they have converged to a considerable extent over the centuries (particularly in the virtually shared derivative indentation). The one meaning ‘(make) a hole or depression’ [14] is simply a derivative of dent, which itself probably originated as a variant of dint. Indent ‘make notches in’ [14], however, owes its origin to Latin dns ‘tooth’. This formed the basis of an Anglo-Latin verb indentre, which denoted the drawing up of a contract between two parties on two identical documents, which were cut along a matching line of notches or ‘teeth’ which could subsequently be rejoined to prove their authenticity. A particular use of such contracts was between master craftsmen and their trainees, who hence became known as indentured apprentices.

DENT, DINT; DENTIST

index [16] Latin index originally meant ‘indicator’, and hence more specifically ‘forefinger’ – the finger used for pointing things out. It was based on the same stem, *dik- ‘point out’, as produced Latin dcere ‘say’ (source of English diction, dictionary, etc). The metaphorically extended sense ‘list of contents’ had already developed in Latin before English took it over. Indicate is a parallel but apparently independent formation.

DICTION, DICTIONARY, INDICATE

indicate [17] Like index, indicate has its origins in the Latin stem *dik- ‘point out’. In this case the base form was the verbal derivative dicre ‘proclaim’ (ultimate ancestor also of English abdicate [16], dedicate [15] and predicate [16]), which with the addition of the prefix inproduced indicre ‘show’ – which English adopted as indicate. First cousin of Latin dicre was dcere ‘say’ (source of English diction, dictionary, etc). Addition of the prefix in- to this produced indcere ‘proclaim’, which formed the basis of Vulgar Latin *indictre ‘declare, dictate’. This has given English two separate verbs: via Old French enditier the now archaic indite [14]; and via Anglo-Norman enditer, with subsequent latinization of the spelling, indict [14].

ABDICATE, DEDICATE, PREDICATE

indifferent see DIFFERENT

indigenous [17] The -gen- of indigenous comes from the same ultimate source – Indo-European *gen- – as produced English gender, generate, genital, etc. It denoted ‘produce’. The addition of the Latin prefix indi- ‘in, within’, earlier indu-(a strengthened form of in- originally formed with de ‘down’, which also appears in indigent ‘poor’ [14] and industry) produced indigena ‘born or produced in a particular place, native’, which English adopted and adapted as indigenous.

GENDER, GENERAL, GENERATE, GENITAL, KIND

indignant see DIGNITY

indigo [16] Etymologically indigo, a blue dye, is the ‘Indian dye’ – so named because supplies of it were obtained from India. The term is an ancient one. It originated in Greek indikón, literally the ‘Indian substance’, a derivative of the adjective Indikós ‘Indian’, and passed via Latin indicum and Spanish indico into English as indico. This was replaced in the 17th century by the Portuguese form indigo, and it was Portuguese influence, stemming from their commercial activities in India, that really established the term among the European languages (hitherto the commoner term for the dye had been anil, a word of Sanskrit origins). (The name India, incidentally, to which indigo is related, comes ultimately from Old Persian hiñd’u, which originally meant ‘river’, was subsequently applied specifically to the river Indus, and finally became the name for the country through which the Indus flowed.)

INDIA

individual [15] To begin with, individual retained in English its ancestral meaning ‘not able to be divided’: ‘in the name of the holy and individual Trinity’. Richard Whitbourne, Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland 1623. It was borrowed from medieval Latin indvidulis, a derivative of Latin indivduus ‘not divisible’, which in turn was based on dviduus, a derivative of the verb dvidere ‘divide’. The semantic move from ‘not divisible’ to ‘single, separate’ took place in the 17th century. (English acquired the formally parallel indivisible, incidentally, in the 14th century.)

DIVIDE

indolent [18] Historically, indolent means ‘feeling no pain’ – indeed, that is how it was used as a technical medical term in English in the 17th and 18th centuries. It comes from late Latin indolens, which was based on the Latin verb dolere ‘suffer pain’ (source also of English dolour [13] and doleful [13]). English took the term directly from Latin, but meanwhile in French indolent had broadened out in meaning via ‘insensitive’ to ‘inactive, lethargic, lazy’, and that is the basis of the current English use of the adjective, acquired in the early 18th century.

DOLEFUL, DOLOUR

indomitable see TAME

indulge [17] The -dulg- of indulge may be related to such words as Greek dolikhós and Russian dólgij, meaning ‘long’. In that case Latin indulgre, the immediate source of the English word, may to begin with have signified ‘allow long enough for’. Its only recorded senses, however, are the same as those of modern English indulge.

industry [15] Industry comes, partly via Old French industrie, from Latin industria, which meant ‘quality of being hard-working, diligence’. This was a derivative of the adjective industrius ‘diligent’, which went back to an Old Latin indostruus, formed from the prefix indu-‘in’ (see INDIGENOUS) and the element -struus (a relative of the verb struere ‘build’, from which English gets construct, destroy, etc).

CONSTRUCT, DESTROY, STRUCTURE

inebriate [15] Latin brius (a relative of sbrius, from which English gets sober) meant ‘drunk’. From it was formed the verb brire ‘intoxicate’, which with the addition of the intensive prefix in- produced inbrire ‘make very drunk’ – whence English inebriate.

SOBER

ineffable [15] Ineffable literally means ‘that cannot be spoken’. Its ultimate source was the Latin verb fr ‘speak’, which has also given English fable, fame, fate, etc. Addition of the prefix ex- ‘out’ produced effr ‘speak out’, from which the adjective ineffabilis was derived. In 19th-century English the word was used as a plural noun, like unmentionables, as a humorous euphemism for ‘trousers’ or ‘nether garments’: ‘shoes off, ineffables tucked up’, William Cory, Letters and Journals 1867.

FABLE, FAME, FATE

inert [17] The -ert of inert is the same word as art. The word comes from Latin iners, which originally meant ‘unskilled’, but soon developed semantically to ‘inactive’. It was formed with the negative prefix in- from ars ‘skill’, source of English art. The derivative inertia [18] is a Latin formation. In classical times it meant simply ‘lack of skill, idleness’; it was Johannes Kepler who first used it as a technical term in physics in the 17th century.

ART, INERTIA

inevitable [15] Latin vitre meant ‘avoid’. It was a compound verb formed from the prefix ex-‘away, from’ and vtre ‘shun’, and actually produced an English verb evite ‘avoid’, a scholarly 16th-century introduction which survived as an archaism into the 19th century. Its derived adjective was vtbilis ‘avoidable’, which with the negative prefix became invtbilis.

inexorable [16] Etymologically, inexorable means ‘that cannot be removed by praying’. It is an adjective of many layers, of which the original is Latin rre ‘pray’ (source of English oracle, orator, etc). Addition of the prefix ex-‘out’ produced exrre ‘remove by pleading or entreating’, and further prefixation and suffixation gave inexrbilis, which entered English partly via French inexorable.

ORACLE, ORATOR

infamous [14] The negative connotations of infamous go back a long way – to the word’s source, in fact, Latin infmis. This did not mean simply ‘not well known’; the prefix in- denoted positively ‘bad’, and so infmis signified ‘of ill repute’. In post-classical times infmis became infamsus, which passed into English as infamous.

FAMOUS

infant [14] Etymologically, an infant is ‘someone who cannot yet speak’. The word comes via Old French enfant from Latin infns ‘young child’, a noun use of the adjective infns, originally ‘unable to speak’, which was formed from the negative prefix in- and the present participle of fr ‘speak’ (source of English fable, fame, fate, etc). The somewhat improbable derivative infantry [16] comes via French from Italian infanteria; this was based on infante, whose original meaning ‘young person’ had shifted to ‘foot soldier’ (a development distantly reminiscent of the use of British English lads for ‘male members of a group, team, etc’).

FABLE, FAME, FATE

infect [14] Latin inficere originally meant ‘put in’ – it was a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and facere ‘put, do’ (source of English fact, fashion, etc). Its earliest specialized extension was ‘dip in’, which was applied specifically to the dipping of cloth into dye. From this it moved on to ‘stain’, and then it was a short step to ‘taint, spoil’. ‘Affect with disease’ was a post-Latin development. English acquired the word via the Latin past participial stem infect.

FACT, FACTORY, FASHION, PERFECT

inferior see UNDER

inferno [19] Etymologically, an inferno is that which is ‘below’. The word comes ultimately from Latin infernus, meaning ‘situated below, subterranean’. In ancient mythology, the nether regions were the abode of the dead, so inferna came to be used as the equivalent of Dis, and the Greek Hades. In Jewish and Christian belief, this basement area was the realm of evil spirits, and consequently in late Latin infernus came to cover much the same semantic ground as English hell. In Italian this became inferno, and English adopted it (strongly under the influence of the Inferno of Dante’s Divine Comedy) in that form in the early 19th century. Its metaphorical use for ‘intense heat’, inspired by the stereotypical flames of hell, is a comparatively recent development. Meanwhile the related infernal [14] (from late Latin infernalis) had long since taken up residence in English, and by the 18th century was being used as an expletive (as in ‘their infernal cheek’).

inflate [16] Inflate comes from infltus, the past participle of Latin inflre ‘blow into’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and flre ‘blow’ (a distant relative of English blow). The use of inflate and inflation as technical terms in economics to denote uncontrolled growth in money supply, credit, etc originated in 1830s America.

BLOW

inflict see PROFLIGATE

influence [14] Influence began life as an astrological term. It was coined in medieval Latin as influentia from the present participle of Latin influere ‘flow in’, a compound verb based on fluere ‘flow’, and to begin with denoted a sort of fluid that was supposed to be given off by the stars and to influence human life. English originally acquired the word with this meaning, and it was not until the end of the 16th century that the main current sense ‘power to produce effects’ started to establish itself. The more concrete notion of an ‘emanation’ that affected people also lay behind the use of Italian influenza for ‘epidemic’, from which English got influenza (see FLU).

Another English acquisition from Latin influere is influx [17], which comes from its past participle.

FLU, FLUENT, INFLUX

influenza see FLU

inform [14] When English first acquired inform (via Old French enfourmer) it was used simply for ‘give form or shape to’. However, its Latin original, informre (a compound verb based on forma ‘form’), had in classical times moved on from the primary notion of ‘shaping’ via ‘forming an idea of something’ and ‘describing it’ to ‘telling or instructing people about something’. English took this sense over too, and has persevered with it, but ‘give shape to’ was dropped in the 17th century.

FORM

ingenious [15] Ingenious used to be a more elevated term than it is today. To begin with it meant ‘highly intelligent’, but already by the 16th century it was starting to come down in the world somewhat to ‘cleverly inventive’. It comes, partly via French ingénieux, from Latin ingenisus, a derivative of ingenium ‘natural talent, skill’ (a word which, like English gene, generate, genital, etc, goes back ultimately to Indo-European *gen- ‘produce’, and was also the source of English engine). Its formal similarity to the distantly related ingenuous has led in the past to its being used for ‘honest, open, frank’, and indeed its semantic derivative ingenuity ‘quality of being ingenious’ [16] belongs etymologically to ingenuous.

GENE, GENERAL, GENERATE, GENITAL

ingenuous [16] Etymologically, ingenuous means ‘inborn’. English acquired it from Latin ingenuus, which was composed of the prefix inand the element *gen-, denoting ‘production, birth’. This was originally used for ‘born in a particular place, native, not foreign’, but it soon began to take on connotations of ‘freeborn, not a slave’, and hence ‘of noble birth’. Metaphorical transference to qualities thought characteristic of the nobility – uprightness, candour, straightforwardness, etc – soon followed, and that was the word’s semantic slant when English acquired it. By the 17th century, however, it had started to slide towards ‘artlessness, innocence’ (a sense reflected in ingénue, borrowed from French in the 19th century).

GENE, GENERAL, GENERATE, GENITAL, INGÉNUE

ingot [14] The etymological meaning of ingot is ‘poured in’. It was formed in Middle English from in and an apparent survival of goten, the past participle of Old English geotan ‘pour’. It originally meant ‘mould for casting metal’ (the idea being that the molten metal was ‘poured into’ the mould), but towards the end of the 16th century it started being used for the lump of metal formed in this way. (When French borrowed the word in the 15th century it grafted its definite article on to it, giving modern French lingot ‘ingot’.)

ingrain [17] Ingrain means literally ‘work into the grain’ (of fabric, originally) – whence the main metaphorical sense of ingrained, ‘deep-seated’. But there is much more to the story of ingrain than that. Its ultimate source was engrainer ‘dye’, an Old French verb based on graine ‘cochineal dye’. English borrowed this in the 14th century as engrain ‘dye crimson with cochineal’, which remained a live sense of the word into the 17th century. Gradually awareness of the word’s original specific connections with the colour crimson died out, and the verb was virtually formed anew in the mid 17th century using the concept of the grain or ‘texture’ of cloth, but the spelling engrain remained, and remains as a secondary variant to this day, to remind us of the word’s origins.

GRAIN

ingredient [15] The -gredi- of ingredient represents the Latin verb grad ‘step, go’ (whose past participial stem gress- has given English aggression, congress, digress, etc). From it was formed ingred ‘go in, enter’, whose present participle ingredins became English ingredient. The word’s etymological meaning is thus ‘that which “enters into” a mixture’. It was originally used mainly with reference to medicines, and its current application to food recipes seems to be a comparatively recent development.

AGGRESSION, CONGRESS, GRADE, GRADUAL

inhabit see HABIT

inherit see HEREDITARY

inimical see ENEMY

iniquity see EQUAL

injury [14] Etymologically, an injury is something ‘unjust’. It comes via Anglo-Norman injurie from Latin injria, a noun use of injrius ‘unjust’, which was a compound adjective based on js ‘right’ (source of English just). Its original meaning in English was ‘wrongful action’, and it was only gradually that the notion of ‘harm’ (which had actually been present in the word from classical Latin times) began to come to the fore.

JUST

ink [13] The Greeks had a method of painting which involved applying coloured wax to a surface and then fixing it with heat. The verb describing this process was egkaíein ‘burn in’, a compound of en- ‘in’ and kaíein ‘burn’, whose derivative egkaustikós is the ancestor of the term used for the technique in English – encaustic [17]. Another derivative, égkauston, was applied to the purple ink used by emperors in ancient times for signing documents. As it passed via late Latin encaustum or encautum into Old French enque it gradually lost its imperial associations, and by the time it reached English as enke it was being used for any dark writing fluid.

CAUSTIC

inn [OE] An inn was originally literally a place one lived or stayed ‘in’. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic *innam, which was a derivative of the ancestor of the modern English adverb in, and in Old English it meant simply ‘house where one lives, abode, home’. This sense survived into the 17th century (‘Queen Mary gave this House to Nicholas Heth, Archbishop of York, and his successors for ever, to be their Inne or Lodging for their Repair to London’, James Howell, Londinopolis 1657), and a memory of it remains in London’s Inns of Court, which originated as lodgings for lawyers. The later sense ‘public house, tavern’ developed towards the end of the 14th century.

IN

innate see NATIVE

innocent [14] Someone who is innocent is literally ‘harmless’. The word comes, partly via Old French, from Latin innocns, an adjective formed with the negative prefix in- from the present participle of nocre ‘harm’ (source of English nuisance) – hence, ‘not harming’. The slight semantic shift from ‘not harming’ to ‘blameless, guiltless’ took place in Latin.

NUISANCE

innuendo [17] An innuendo was originally a hint given with a ‘nod’ or a wink. The word is a derivative of Latin innuere ‘signal to by means of a nod’, a compound verb formed from in-‘towards’ and nuere ‘nod’. The ablative case of its gerund, innuend ‘by nodding’, was used in medieval legal documents as the equivalent of ‘that is to say, i.e’. In particular, it introduced the derogatory meaning claimed by the plaintiff in a libel case to be contained in or implied by a statement, and this formed the basis for its metaphorical transference to any ‘oblique derogatory implication’.

inoculate [15] Far-fetched as the connection may seem, inoculate actually comes ultimately from Latin oculus ‘eye’ (source of English ocular [16] and oculist [17]). By metaphorical extension oculus was applied to the ‘bud’ of a plant (much like the eye of a potato in English), and the verb inoculre was coined to denote the grafting on of a bud or other plan part. That was how it was used when originally adopted into English (‘Peaches have their Season at May Kalends them to inoculate’, Palladius on Husbandry 1440), and the modern sense ‘introduce antigens into the body’ did not emerge before the early 18th century, based on the notion of ‘engrafting’ or ‘implanting’ an immunising virus into a person. It was originally used with reference to smallpox.

EYE, FEROCIOUS, OCULAR

inquest see ENQUIRE

insect [17] The Greek word for ‘insect’ was éntomon (source of English entomology [18]). It was derived from entémnein ‘cut up’, a compound verb formed from en- ‘in’ and témnein ‘cut’ (a close relative of English tome), and denoted literally ‘creature divided up into segments’. The term was translated literally into Latin as insectum (originally the past participle of insecre, a compound verb formed from inand secre ‘cut’), and seems to have been introduced into English in Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny’s Natural History 1601.

SECTION

insert see SERIES

inside [16] Inside (a compound, of course, of in and side) was originally a noun, meaning ‘inner surface’ (‘Solomon builded the walls on the inside with Cedar timber’, Miles Coverdale’s translation of I Kings 6:15 1535), and it was not used as an adjective until the early 17th century – by Shakespeare, in fact. Adverbial and prepositional use are more recent still, from around the end of the 18th century.

SIDE

insidious see SESSION

insignia see SIGN

insist see STATUE

insouciant see SOLICIT

inspire see SPIRIT

instal [16] To instal someone was originally literally to put them ‘into a stall’. The word comes from medieval Latin installre, a compound verb based on the noun stallum ‘stall’, and referred originally to the formal induction of someone into an office by ceremonially placing them in a seat or ‘stall’, such as the choir stall of a cathedral. The instalof instalment [18], incidentally, is a different word, although the two are ultimately related. It is an alteration of an earlier estallment ‘arrangement for payment’, which came from Anglo-Norman estaler ‘fix payments’. This was a derivative of estal ‘fixed position’, which was borrowed from Old High German stal ‘place’ (source also of medieval Latin stallum).

INSTALMENT, STALL

instant [15] Latin instre meant ‘be present’ (it was a compound verb formed from the prefix in-‘upon’ and stre ‘stand’). Its present participle instns was used adjectivally for ‘present’, and hence by extension for ‘urgent’. The latter was actually the meaning originally taken up by English, but it has now virtually died out. ‘Present’ was introduced in the mid-16th century (it now survives in the abbreviation inst, used in giving dates to signify ‘the present month’), and by the end of the century this had evolved into the main current sense ‘immediate’. The noun instant ‘moment’ comes from medieval Latin tempus instns ‘present time’. Derived from instns was the Latin noun instantia ‘presence, urgency’. Again it was the latter that originally came into English with instance [14]. The main modern sense ‘example’, first recorded in the 16th century, appears to come ultimately from a semantic progression in medieval Latin from ‘urgency’ to ‘eager solicitation’ and hence to ‘legal pleading’. Further metaphoricization took it on to ‘new argument or example adduced to counter a previous one’, and hence in due course to simply ‘example’.

INSTANCE, STAND, STATION, STATUE

instead [13] Instead is the English end of a chain of loan translations that goes back to Latin in loc (in loan translations, the individual components of a foreign word or expression are translated into their equivalents in the borrowing language, and then reassembled). The Latin phrase meant literally ‘in place (of)’, and this was translated into Old French as en lieu de. Middle English rendered the French expression in turn as in stead of or in the stead of (stead ‘place’, now obsolete except in certain fixed compounds and expressions, comes ultimately from the same Indo-European source as stand, station, etc). It began to be written as one word towards the end of the 16th century.

STAND, STATION, STATUE, STEAD

instigate see STICK

instil see STILL

instinct [15] The etymological notion underlying instinct (and also the closely related instigate) is of ‘goading onwards with a pointed stick’. Its ultimate source is Latin instinguere ‘urge onwards, incite’, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- ‘on’ and stinguere ‘prick, goad’. Source also of English distinct and extinct, this goes back to the same root, *stig-, as produced English stick and Latin stgre ‘prick, goad’, the ancestor of English instigate [16]. The noun derived from it, instinctus, originally meant ‘incitement, instigation’, but it eventually moved on to ‘impulse’, the sense it had when English acquired it. The more specialized ‘innate impulse’ developed in the mid 16th century.

DISTINCT, EXTINCT, INSTIGATE, STICK

institute [15] An institute is etymologically something ‘established’ or ‘set up’. Its ancestor is Latin instituere ‘establish’, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and statuere ‘set up’ (itself a derivative of stre ‘stand’ and source of English prostitute, statute, etc). The noun derived from this was instittum, which meant ‘purpose, plan, practice’. Word and senses were taken over as a package by English, but these meanings are now dead or dying, having been taken over since the 19th century by ‘organization that promotes a particular cause or pursuit’ (this originated in French at the end of the 18th century). The verb institute, however, remains far closer to the original Latin meaning.

PROSTITUTE, STAND, STATION, STATUTE

instruct [15] The -struct of instruct occurs also in construction, destruction, structure, etc. It comes from the past participle of Latin struere ‘build’. In the case of instruct, combination with the prefix in- produced instruere ‘build, prepare, equip, teach’, whose past participle stem instruct- formed the basis of the English verb.

CONSTRUCT, DESTROY, INSTRUMENT, STRUCTURE

instrument [13] Instrument comes from the same source as instruct: the Latin verb instruere ‘build, prepare, equip, teach’. From it was derived the noun instrmentum, which meant ‘tool, equipment’. When introduced into English via Old French at the end of the 13th century it was used for a ‘musical instrument’, but the more general ‘implement’ and the metaphorical ‘means’ soon followed in the 14th century.

CONSTRUCT, DESTROY, INSTRUCT, STRUCTURE

insular see ISLAND

insulin [20] Insulin, a hormone which promotes the utilization of blood sugar, was first isolated in 1921 by F G Banting and C H Best. Its name, which was inspired by the fact that insulin is secreted by groups of cells known as the islets of Langerhans (insula is Latin for ‘island’), was actually coined in French around 1909, and was independently proposed in English on a couple of further occasions before the substance itself was anything more than a hypothesis.

ISLE, PENINSULA

insult [16] The -sult of insult comes from a word that meant ‘jump’. Its source was Latin insultre ‘jump on’, a compound verb based on saltre ‘jump’. This was a derivative of salre ‘jump’, source in one way or another of English assail, assault, desultory, salacious, and salient. Old French took insultre over as insulter and used it for ‘triumph over in an arrogant way’. This was how the word was originally used in English, but at the beginning of the 17th century the now familiar sense ‘abuse’ (which had actually developed first in the Latin verb) was introduced.

ASSAIL, ASSAULT, DESULTORY, SALACIOUS, SALIENT

insuperable see SUPER

insure [15] Insure and ensure [14] are ultimately the same word. And their common ancestor started out, in fact, as a variant of assure [14]. This came via Old French asseurer from Vulgar Latin *asscrre, a compound verb formed from the Latin prefix ad- ‘to’ and the adjective scrus ‘safe’ (source of English secure and sure). Anglo-Norman had a variant form, enseurer, which produced English ensure. From fairly early on this had been alternatively spelled insure (using the Latinate prefix in-), but it was not until the 17th century that this version became established in the sense ‘provide cover against loss, damage, etc’ (for which previously the more usual term had actually been assure).

ASSURE, ENSURE, SECURE, SURE

insurgent [18] An insurgent is etymologically someone who ‘rises up’. The word comes from the Latin verb insurgere, which was formed from in- in the sense ‘against’ and surgere ‘rise’ (source of English surge and source). An insurgent is hence fairly straightforwardly a rebel, someone taking part in an uprising, a belligerent who is not part of an officially recognized fighting force. Choice of vocabulary in this area tends to be controversial, however, and the use of insurgent to denote Iraqi irredentists after the Coalition invasion of 2003 was widely criticized – partly, perhaps, from the misconception that they were being characterized as ‘surging in’ from outside the country. The longer established insurrection [15], from the same ultimate source, is much less liable to such misunderstanding.

RESOURCE, RESURRECTION, SOURCE, SURGE

intact see ENTIRE

integral see ENTIRE

integrity see ENTIRE

integument see PROTECT

intellect [14] Intellect and intelligent come from the same ultimate source: Latin intelligere ‘perceive, choose between’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix inter-‘between’ and legere ‘gather, choose, read’ (source of English lecture, legible, etc). Its past participle intellectus came to be used as a noun meaning ‘perception, comprehension’, which English acquired as intellect via Old French; while its present participle intelligns gave English intelligent [16]. The derivative intelligentsia [20] was borrowed from Russian intelligyentsia, which in turn came via Polish inteligiencja from Latin intelligentia ‘intelligence’.

INTELLIGENT, LECTURE, LEGIBLE

intend [14] The Latin verb intendere (a compound formed from the prefix in- ‘towards’ and tendere ‘stretch’) had a variety of metaphorical meanings, some of which have come through into English. Principal among them was ‘form a plan or purpose’, an extension of an earlier ‘direct or ‘stretch’ one’s thoughts towards something’, which has given English intend and the derived intention [14]. The noun intent [13] belongs with this group too, but the adjective intent [17] looks back to the earlier ‘direct one’s mind towards a particular thing’, and intense [14] comes from the even more literal ‘stretched tight’. A medieval Latin addition to the meanings of intendere was ‘understand’, which English adopted in the 14th century. It had largely died out in English by the end of the 17th century, but it has persisted in the Romance languages, and has even developed further to ‘hear’ (which is what French entendre means).

INTENSE, INTENTION, TENSE

interest [15] The Latin verb interesse meant literally ‘be between’ (it was a compound of inter ‘between’ and esse ‘be’). It was used metaphorically for ‘be of concern, be important, matter’, and appears to have been borrowed into Anglo-Norman as a noun, meaning ‘what one has a legal concern in or share of’. English took this over in the 14th century as interesse, but it gradually changed over the next hundred years or so into interest, mainly due to the influence of Old French interest ‘damage’, which came from the third person present singular form of the Latin verb. The main modern sense ‘curiosity’ developed towards the end of the 18th century.

interloper [16] An interloper is literally someone who ‘runs between’. The word was coined in English, but based on Dutch loper, a derivative of lopen ‘run’ (to which English leap is related). It originally denoted someone who engaged in trade without authorization, and only in the 17th century took on its present-day meaning ‘interfering outsider’.

LEAP

intermediate see MEDIUM

intermezzo see MEDIUM

internecine [17] Etymologically, internecine denotes ‘attended by great slaughter’. Its modern connotations of ‘conflict within a group’, which can be traced back to the 18th century (Dr Johnson in his Dictionary 1755 defines it as ‘endeavouring mutual destruction’), presumably arise from the standard interpretation of inter- as ‘among, between’. But in fact in the case of internecine it was originally used simply as an intensive prefix. The word was borrowed from Latin internecnus, a derivative of internecre ‘slaughter, exterminate’. This was a compound verb formed with the intensive inter- from necre ‘kill’ (a relative of English necromancy and pernicious).

NECROMANCY, PERNICIOUS

interpolate [17] The Latin ancestor of interpolate meant literally ‘polish up’. It was interpolre, based on a verbal element -polre that was related to polre ‘polish’ (source of English polish). Its meaning gradually progressed metaphorically via ‘refurbish’ and ‘alter the appearance of’ to ‘falsify, particularly by the insertion of new material’ (this last presumably arising from a reassertion of the central meaning of inter-, ‘between’). English originally took it over in the sense ‘alter, tamper with’, but before the middle of the 17th century the notion of ‘insertion, interjection’ had begun to emerge in its own right, and has gradually taken over from ‘alter’.

POLISH

interpose see POSITION

interregnum see REIGN

interrogate see PREROGATIVE

interrupt [15] Etymologically, interrupt means ‘break between’. It comes from the past participle of Latin interrumpere ‘break in’, a compound verb formed from the prefix inter-‘between’ and rumpere ‘break’ (source of English rout and rupture).

CORRUPT, ROUT, RUPTURE

intersect see SECTION

interval [13] The val- of interval represents Latin vallum ‘rampart’ (source of English wall) – so etymologically the word means ‘space between ramparts’. That was the original sense of its Latin ancestor, intervallum, but already in the classical period the metaphorical ‘gap in time, pause’ was developing.

WALL

intestate see TESTAMENT

intransigent [19] In the 18th century there was an extreme leftist political party in Spain which, because of its unwillingness ever to compromise, was known as los intransigentes. The name was formed with the negative prefix in- from transigentes, the present participle of Spanish transigir ‘compromise’. This was a descendant of Latin transigere, literally ‘drive through’, hence ‘come to an understanding, accomplish’ (source of English transact), a compound verb formed from trans- ‘through’ and agere ‘drive’ (from which English gets action, agent, etc.) French took the Spanish word over as a general adjective meaning ‘uncompromising’, and English acquired it in the early 1880s.

ACT, ACTION, AGENT, TRANSACT

intrepid [17] The -trepid of intrepid represents Latin trepidus ‘alarmed’ (source also of English trepidation [17]), which goes back to an Indo-European source in which the notion of ‘fear’ seems to be linked with or derived from that of ‘scurrying away’. Addition of the negative prefix in- produced intrepidus ‘undaunted’, which reached English partly via French intrépide.

TREPIDATION

intricate see TRICK

intrinsic [15] The Latin adverb intrinsecus meant ‘on the inside’. It was formed from *intrim ‘inward’, an unrecorded derivative of the adverb intr ‘within’, and secus ‘alongside’ (a relative of English second, sect, sequel, etc). In the post-classical period it came to be used as an adjective, meaning ‘inward’, and it passed into Old French as intrinseque ‘inner, internal’. This general concrete sense accompanied the word into English, but it now survives only as an anatomical term, meaning ‘situated within a body part’. The abstract sense ‘inherent’, now the adjective’s main meaning, developed in the 17th century.

The derivation of the antonym extrinsic [16] is precisely parallel, with Latin extr ‘outside’ taking the place of intr .

EXTRINSIC, SECOND, SECT, SEQUEL

introduce [16] Introduce means etymologically ‘lead inside’. It was borrowed from Latin intrdcere ‘lead in’, a compound verb formed from the prefix intr- ‘in, inside’ and dcere ‘lead’ (source of English duct, duke, educate, produce, etc). Of its main secondary meanings, ‘use for the first time, originate’ emerged in Latin but ‘make known personally to others’ seems to have been a later development.

DUCT, DUKE, EDUCATE, PRODUCE

intrude see ABSTRUSE

inundate see UNDULATE

invalid see VALID

inveigh [15] Inveigh originally meant ‘carry in, introduce’ (‘In them are two colours quarterly put: the one into the other, and so one colour is inveighed into another’, Book of Saint Albans 1486). Its second syllable comes from Latin vehere ‘carry’ (source of English vector, vehicle, and vex). Invehere meant simply ‘carry in’, but its passive infinitive form inveh denoted ‘be carried into’, ‘go into’, and hence ‘attack (physically or verbally)’. This latter sense was imported into English inveigh in the early 16th century, and into the derivative invective [15].

INVECTIVE, VEHICLE, VEX

inveigle [15] The French verb aveugler means ‘blind’ (it is a derivative of the adjective aveugle ‘blind’, whose probable source was the medieval Latin phrase ab oculs ‘without eyes’). It passed into Anglo-Norman, with alteration of the prefix, as envegler, and English acquired this originally in the metaphorical sense ‘deceive’ – which in the 16th century developed to ‘entice, seduce, persuade’.

invent [15] Invent originally meant ‘find’ (‘Since that Eve was procreated out of Adam’s side, could not such newels [novelties] in this land be invented’, wrote the anonymous author of a 15th-century song). It was based on invent-, the past participial stem of Latin invenre ‘come upon, find’, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- ‘on’ and venre ‘come’. The sense ‘devise’, which developed via ‘discover’, actually existed in the Latin verb, but English did not take it on board until the 16th century.

The derivative inventory [16] was borrowed from medieval Latin inventrium ‘list’, an alteration of late Latin inventrium, which originally meant a ‘finding out’, hence an ‘enumeration’.

ADVENTURE, INVENTORY

invert see VERSE

invest [16] The etymological notion underlying invest is of ‘putting on clothes’. It comes via Old French investir from Latin investre, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and vestis ‘clothes’ (source of English vest, vestment, travesty, etc). It retained that original literal sense ‘clothe’ in English for several centuries, but now it survives only in its metaphorical descendant ‘instal in an office’ (as originally performed by clothing in special garments). Its financial sense, first recorded in English in the early 17th century, is thought to have originated in Italian investire from the idea of dressing one’s capital up in different clothes by putting it into a particular business, stock, etc.

TRAVESTY, VEST, VESTMENT

investigate [16] To investigate something is etymologically to look for traces, or ‘vestiges’, of it. The word comes from Latin investgre ‘search into’, a compound verb based on vestgre ‘track, trace’. This in turn was a derivative of vestgium ‘footprint’, hence ‘track, trace’ (source of English vestige).

VESTIGE

invidious see ENVY

invigorate see VIGOUR

invincible see VANQUISH

invite [16] Invite comes from Latin invitre, probably by way of French inviter, but there our certain knowledge of its ancestry ends; for the Latin verb is something of a mystery word. No one is too sure where the element -vitre comes from. One suggestion is that it is related to Greek hiesthai ‘be desirous of’.

VIE

invoice see ENVOY

invoke see VOCATION

involve see VOLUME

iodine [19] Íon was the Greek word for ‘violet’ (indeed it is related to English violet). From it was derived the adjective ides ‘violet-coloured’, which was taken by the chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac as the basis of iode, the French term for ‘iodine’ (iodine gives off a purple vapour when heated). The British chemist Sir Humphry Davy adopted it into English, adding the suffix -ine to produce iodine.

VIOLET

ire see OESTRUS

irk [13] Irk originally meant ‘grow tired’, and although it is not known for certain, its underlying sense could be ‘work until one is weary’: for a possible source may be Old Norse yrkja ‘work’. The present-day sense ‘annoy’ is first recorded in the 15th century.

iron [OE] Iron is probably a Celtic contribution to English, but the borrowing took place in the prehistoric period, before the Germanic dialects separated, and so English shares the word with German (eisen), Dutch (ijzen), Swedish (järn), etc. The prehistoric Celtic form from which these all ultimately came was * sarnon, which some have linked with Latin aes ‘bronze’ and Sanskrit isira- ‘strong’. The ancient Indo-European peoples had already split up into groups speaking mutually unintelligible tongues by the time iron came into general use, so there was never any common Indo-European term for it.

irony [16] Irony has no etymological connection with iron. It comes via Latin rnia from Greek eirneí, which signified ‘deliberately pretending ignorance, particularly as a rhetorical device to get the better of one’s opponent in argument’. This was a derivative of eir n ‘dissembler’, which in turn came from the verb eírein ‘say’. This original sense of ‘dissimulation’ survives in the expression Socratic irony, a reference to Socrates’ use of such feigned ignorance as a pedagogical method, but it has been overtaken as the main sense of the word by ‘saying the opposite of what one means’.

isinglass [16] Early modern Dutch huysen meant ‘sturgeon’ and blas denoted ‘bladder’. Put them together and you had huysenblas, which English took over as a term not for the sturgeon’s air bladder itself, but for the gelatinous substance obtained from it – isinglass. In the process of adoption the more familiar glass was substituted for -blas.

island [OE] Despite their similarity, island has no etymological connection with isle (their resemblance is due to a 16th-century change in the spelling of island under the influence of its semantic neighbour isle). Island comes ultimately from a prehistoric Germanic *auj, which denoted ‘land associated with water’, and was distantly related to Latin aqua ‘water’. This passed into Old English as eg ‘island’, which was subsequently compounded with land to form egland ‘island’. By the late Middle English period this had developed to iland, the form which was turned into island. (A diminutive form of Old English eg, incidentally, has given us eyot ‘small island in a river’ [OE].)

Isle [13] itself comes via Old French le from Latin insula (the s is a 15th-century reintroduction from Latin). Other contributions made by insula to English include insular [17], insulate [16], insulin, isolate (via Italian) [18], and peninsula [16].

EYOT

isotope [20] The term isotope for a version of an element with a particular atomic weight was coined in 1913 by the British chemist Frederick Soddy. It means literally ‘equal place’ and was formed from two Greek components, the prefix iso- ‘equal’ and the noun tópos ‘place’ (source of English topic). The reason for the coinage was that although isotopes of the same element have different atomic weights, they occupy the ‘same place’ in the periodic table of elements.

TOPIC

issue [13] The words issue and exit are closely related etymologically. Both go back ultimately to the Latin verb exre ‘go out’. Its past participle exitus became in Vulgar Latin extus, whose feminine form exta was used as a noun meaning ‘going out, exit’. This passed into Old French as eissue, later issue, and thence into English. The original literal sense of the word still survives in English, particularly in relation to the outflow of liquid, but has been overtaken in frequency by various metaphorical extensions denoting a ‘giving out’ – such as the ‘issue’ of a book or magazine. The sense ‘point of discussion or consideration’ probably comes from a medieval legal expression join issue, which originally meant ‘jointly submit a disputed matter to the decision of the court’, and hence ‘argue about something’.

EXIT

it [OE] It (or hit, as it was in Old English) comes ultimately from the same prehistoric Germanic demonstrative stem form. *khi-, as produced he. The possessive form its is a comparatively recent development, dating from the end of the 16th century; until then, his was used for ‘its’.

HE

itinerary see OBITUARY

ivory [13] As is hardly surprising, ivory goes back ultimately to an African word which meant both ‘ivory’ and ‘elephant’. A likely candidate as this source is Egyptian b, which may well lie behind Latin ebur ‘ivory’. This passed into English via Old French ivurie.

The expression ivory tower ‘place where reality is evaded’ is a translation of French tour d’ivoire. This was originally used in 1837 by the French critic Sainte-Beuve with reference to the poet Alfred de Vigny, whom he accused of excessive aloofness from the practicalities of the world. The English version is first recorded in 1911.

ivy [OE] Ivy has been traced back to a prehistoric Germanic *ibakhs, which also lies behind modern German efeu and Dutch eilof. This has been linked by some etymologists with Latin ibex ‘mountain goat’ (itself acquired by English in the 17th century), the semantic connection being ‘climber’.

The expression Ivy League, denoting the eight old-established and prestigious universities of the northeastern USA (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale), was inspired by the idea of ancient ivy-covered walls. It dates from the 1930s.