Etymologically
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impatient

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Pronunciation

  • /ɪmˈpeɪʃənt/[1]

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

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