Where does “inaugurate” come from?
Inaugurate comes from French inaugurer, from Latin augurare meaning to practice augury, prefixed with Latin in-, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European h₁én meaning being or existence.
inaugurate (English): To induct into office with a formal ceremony; To...
Definitions
- To induct into office with a formal ceremony; To...
Ancestry of “inaugurate”, step by step
inaugurate traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via French inaugurer
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | French | inaugurer | to inaugurate |
| 2 | Latin | inaugurō | to divine, practice augury, take omens from the flight of birds |
| 3 | Latin | auguro | I predict, foretell, forebode; I conjecture,... |
| 4 | Latin | augur | augur (priest, diviner, or soothsayer, one who foretold the future in part by interpreting the song and flight of birds) |
| 5 | Latvian | augos | locative plural form of augs; locative plural... |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | h₂ewg- | to increase, to enlarge |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | h₂weg- | to increase, to enlarge |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | h₂ug- | — |
via Latin inauguratus
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Latin | inauguratus | divined, having been taken as an omen;... |