Where does “tacit” come from?

Tacit comes from Middle French tacite, meaning silent or unspoken.

tacit (English): Expressed in silence; implied, but not made...

Definitions

  1. Expressed in silence; implied, but not made...

Ancestry of “tacit”, step by step

tacit traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.

via French Tacite

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1FrenchTaciteTacitus
2LatinTacitusA Roman cognomen, notably borne by Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (c.56-117), a historian of ancient Rome and Marcus Claudius Tacitus (c.200-275), a Roman emperor
3LatintaceoI am silent, say nothing, shut up, hold my...
4Proto-Italictakēōbe silent
5Proto-Indo-Europeantak-to be silent

via Middle French tacite

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Frenchtacite—

Words derived from “tacit”

Every word from Proto-Indo-European tak- →Every word from Proto-Italic takēō →Every word from Latin taceo →