Where does “absentee” come from?
Absentee comes from French absente with the English agent suffix -ee, from Middle French absent, from Latin absentis, the present participle of abesse meaning to be away.
absentee (English): A person who is absent from his or her...
Definitions
- A person who is absent from his or her...
Ancestry of “absentee”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | absent | Being away from a place; withdrawn from a place;... |
| 2 | Middle English | absent | — |
| 3 | Middle French | absent | — |
| 4 | Old French | ausent | — |
| 5 | Latin | absēns | absent, missing, away, away from, distant, gone, gone away |
| 6 | Latin | absum | I am away, I am absent, I am distant |
| 7 | Latin | ab- | from, away, away from; off; at a distance |
| 8 | Latin | āb | from, away from, out of |
| 9 | Proto-Germanic | *ab | — |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | apó | — |