impatient

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English impacient, also inpaciente and enpacient,^[2] borrowed from Old French impacient, also impatient,^[3][4][5] from Latin impatiēns (“that cannot bear, intolerant”).^[4][6][3] The Latin adjective is formed from in- (“not”) and patiēns (“bearing, enduring, suffering”), the present participle of patior (“to suffer, endure”), which is also the source of patient.^[6][3][5][4] Merriam-Webster gives the immediate source as Middle French impacient,^[7] and Dictionary.com takes it directly from Latin.^[8] The Anglo-Norman form is recorded from the early 13th century, meaning impatient or over-eager.^[9] The less common unpatient is recorded from the same period.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Not bearing pain, trouble or opposition calmly; irritable, easily provoked: 1377, in Langland's Piers Plowman.^[3] Etymonline dates it to the late 14th century.^[4] In Middle English it also meant enraged or distraught, and intolerant or hostile.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was a failure to endure something painful or annoying.^[3][4] From the 16th century the word took of for what one cannot put up with (before 1535, in Thomas More);^[3] from the late 16th century it was used of restless eagerness for something delayed: Shakespeare used it with an infinitive in Love's Labour's Lost (1598) and with for in Romeo and Juliet (1599).^[3] A sense "unbearable, intolerable", which the ODE and the Shorter Oxford date to late Middle English, was used until the mid 17th century.^[3][10][11] Johnson (1755) defined it first as "not able to endure" and also as "furious with pain".^[12] The noun, an impatient person, often with a play on patient, is recorded from 1502,^[3] and a reflexive verb, to lose patience, from 1813, compared by the OED with s'impatienter.^[3]

Timeline

• early 13th century – Anglo-Norman impacient, impatient, over-eager.^[9]
• 1377 – not bearing trouble calmly; irritable.^[3]
• 1490 – figuratively, of things.^[3]
• 1502 – noun, an impatient person.^[3]
• before 1535 – impatient of, unwilling to put up with.^[3]
• 1590 – unbearable (obsolete after 1646).^[3]
• 1598 – restlessly eager to do something.^[3]
• 1599 – uneasy in desire or expectation, impatient for something.^[3]
• 1755 – Johnson: "not able to endure; incapable to bear".^[12]
• 1813 – verb, reflexive, to lose patience.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Lacking patience; easily irritated by delay, opposition or annoyance: The impatient drivers began to sound their horns.^[13][7][3]
2. Showing or caused by impatience: an impatient gesture.^[13][7]
3. impatient of: unwilling to tolerate or put up with something: impatient of any delay.^[13][7][3]
4. Restlessly eager for something, or to do something: The children were impatient to open their presents.^[13][3]
5. (obsolete, 1590–1646) Unbearable, intolerable.^[3][10]

Noun

1. An impatient person.^[7][3]

Word family

• impatiently
• impatientness
• unimpatient

Related words

• patient
• patience
• impatience
• passion
• passive
• impassive

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b 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 c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins