impatience

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English impacience,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French impacience, also impatience,^[6][4][2] and directly borrowed from Latin impatientia (“impatience; weakness”).^[3][7][2][5] The Latin noun is formed from in- (“not”), which becomes im- before p, and patientia (“the quality of suffering, patience”),^[6][7] from patior (“to suffer”);^[6] Etymonline and Klein take it through the adjective impatiēns (“intolerant, impatient”).^[3][4] The Old French form is recorded from the 12th century,^[6][3] and Anglo-Norman has impacience, with the further sense of over-eagerness, from the second half of the 13th century.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Failure to bear suffering or wrong with composure: about 1230, in the Ancrene Riwle, where inpatience is the eighth whelp of the lion of pride.^[6][5] Barnhart dates that text probably before 1200,^[7] Etymonline gives about 1200,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1175–1225.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word belonged to the vocabulary of sin and patient suffering: an inability to endure adversity, and also anger, resentment or a stubborn refusal to accept reproof.^[5] Chaucer used it six times.^[10] A construction with of, an inability to put up with something, follows in the 1560s.^[6] From 1581 the word is recorded for intolerance of delay and restless longing.^[6][11] Johnson (1755) still put the older meaning first, inability to bear pain, then vehemence of temper, and only then inability to bear delay.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1230 – failure to bear suffering or annoyance; irritability.^[6][5]
• c. 1566 – with of, inability to endure something.^[6]
• c. 1578 – with an infinitive (obsolete by 1683).^[6]
• 1581 – intolerance of delay; restless longing.^[6]
• 1669 – with of, impatient desire for something (obsolete by 1759).^[6]
• 1880 – with an infinitive, eagerness to do something, in Ben-Hur.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Lack of patience; irritation with anything that delays or hinders: She tapped the counter in impatience as the queue crawled forward.^[13][2][6]
2. Intolerance of something or someone: his impatience with paperwork.^[2][6]
3. Restless eagerness or longing: their impatience to see the results.^[13][2][6]

Related words

• impatient
• patience
• patient

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e 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)
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins