imp

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English impe (“shoot, sprig, offspring”),^[2][3] inherited from Old English impa (“young shoot, graft”),^[4][5][6][7] formed from the verb impian (“to graft”).^[4][5][6][8] The Old English verb corresponds to Old High German impfōn, now impfen,^[4][8][9] which Hoad and the Shorter Oxford take as a shortened form of impitōn.^[9][8] Barnhart and Etymonline consider the Old English verb an early borrowing through a Germanic source,^[5][6] from Vulgar Latin *imputus,^[5] a variant of impotus (“graft, implanted”),^[5][8] a word found in the Salic Law,^[10][11] from Ancient Greek ἔμφυτος (émphutos, “implanted, grafted”),^{[2][5][4][12]} the verbal adjective of ἐμφύω (emphúō, “to implant”),^[5][10] from ἐν (en, “in”) and φύω (phúō, “to make grow, bring forth”).^[5][10][6] The American Heritage Dictionary traces the Greek verb to Proto-Indo-European *bheuə-.^[2] Merriam-Webster derives the Latin source differently, from an assumed *imputō (“to graft into”), formed from in- and putō (“to trim, prune”),^[13][14] and Weekley allows both explanations.^[15] The same Late Latin word gave French enter (“to graft”),^[10][4] and ympe and ympa come from Low German.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A young shoot or sapling: the noun is recorded before 899, in King Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care.^[5][4] The verb, to graft, appears in the Old English Gerefa.^[4] In Middle English the noun is first found about 1330 with the sense "shoot, scion, young tree".^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word passed from plants to people, keeping its notion of newness or youth, so that by the 14th century it meant "child, offspring",^[12][6][16] especially a scion of a noble house, as in Hoccleve's ballad to Prince Henry, about 1412.^[4][17] Trench noted that imp was once used in this noble sense, much as scions of a great family are spoken of now.^[17] In the 16th century phrases such as imp of Satan or imps of serpents (1526) made it a child of the devil, and by the 1580s, without the qualification, a little devil or evil spirit,^[6][4][12] in the 17th century especially a witch's familiar.^[4] From the 1640s it was used playfully of a mischievous child, which Etymonline sees as an unconscious return to the Middle English sense "child".^[6][4] The plant senses died out around 1700.^[4][14] The verb kept its gardening sense until the late 17th century,^[4] but from the 15th century falconers used it for grafting new feathers into a hawk's damaged wing,^[9][4] whence the figurative imp the wings of, to strengthen or help someone fly (1596, Spenser),^[4] and the sense "to eke out, add to" (1592).^[4][9] Johnson (1755) defined the noun first as "a son; the offspring".^[18] Dialects kept imp for a shoot or sucker in fences and coppices, and in the north for an extra ring of straw put under a beehive.^[19]

Timeline

• before 899 – Old English impa, a young shoot.^[5][4]
• c. 1330 – Middle English impe, a shoot, scion, young tree.^[3]
• 1340–70 – verb, to engraft or implant, figuratively.^[4]
• 1377 – a shoot used in grafting, in Piers Plowman.^[4]
• c. 1380 – child, figuratively.^[4]
• c. 1412 – scion of a noble house; offspring, child.^[4]
• 1477 – verb, in falconry, to graft feathers into a wing.^[4]
• 1526 – a child of the devil or of hell, of wicked people or petty fiends.^[4][6]
• 1584 – a little devil, an evil spirit.^[4]
• 1592 – verb, to eke out, enlarge, mend.^[4]
• 1642 – a mischievous child.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small demon or devil; a mischievous sprite: In the story, an imp lived inside the old lamp.^[20][13]
2. A mischievous child; an urchin.^[20][13][4]
3. (obsolete, Old English–1672) A young shoot of a plant; a sapling, or a graft.^[13][4]
4. (archaic) An offspring or child, especially a scion of a noble family.^[13][4]

Verb

1. In falconry, to repair a damaged wing of a hawk or falcon by grafting in new feathers.^[20][13][4]
2. (archaic) To graft or implant.^[13][4]
3. (archaic) To eke out, enlarge or mend.^[13][4]

Word family

• impish

Related words

• -phyte

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
20. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins