Where does “infrequent” come from?
Infrequent comes from Old French frequenter, Latin frequentāre, and ultimately Proto-Indo-European roots meaning "not" and "to go," expressing the sense of rarely occurring or seldom happening.
infrequent (English): Not frequent; not happening frequently
Definitions
- Not frequent; not happening frequently
Ancestry of “infrequent”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | in- | in, into, towards, within; in, into; Used with... |
| 2 | Middle English | in- | — |
| 3 | Old English | in- | in, into; on, upon; internal, positioned on the... |
| 4 | Old English | in | in; Alternative form of inn |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | *in | — |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | in | in; into |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | én | in |
Words derived from “infrequent”