Where does “accent” come from?
Accent comes from Middle English accent, from Middle French accent, from Old French acent, from Latin accentus, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ád.
accent (English): A higher-pitched or stronger articulation of a...
Definitions
- A higher-pitched or stronger articulation of a...
Ancestry of “accent”, step by step
accent traces back through 3 separate lines of ancestry.
via French accent
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | French | accent | accent, manner or tone of speech; an accent... |
| 2 | German | Akzent | accent |
| 3 | Italian | accento | stress; accent; tone |
| 4 | Russian | акцент | stress, accent; accent; accent, emphasis, stress |
| 5 | Spanish | acento | accent |
| 6 | Latin | accentus | a blast, signal; accent, tone, accentuation;... |
| 7 | Latin | cantus | sung, recited; sounded, blew; chanted |
| 8 | Latin | canere | present active infinitive of canō; second-person... |
| 9 | Latin | caneo | I am white, gray or hoary |
| 10 | Latin | -eo | Forms stative verbs from adjectives; dative... |
| 11 | Proto-Italic | -ēō | Forms stative verbs, indicating a state of being;... |
| 12 | Proto-Italic | -ējō | — |
| 13 | Proto-Indo-European | -éh₁yeti | Thematicization of the athematic stative verbal... |
| 14 | Proto-Indo-European | -yeti | Creates transitive imperfective verbs from roots |
via Middle English accent
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | accent | accent |
| 2 | Latin | accinō | to sing to |
| 3 | Latin | ad- | to; usually prefixed to verbs, in which cases it... |
| 4 | Latin | īn- | un-, non-, not |
| 5 | Latin | în | in, at, on, upon, from (space) |
| 6 | Latin | en | lookǃ beholdǃ; reallyǃ?; come onǃ |
| 7 | Proto-Italic | en | in |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | h₁én | in |