infancy

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English enfaunce, also infaunce,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman enfaunce and directly borrowed from Latin infantia (“early childhood; inability to speak”),^[4][5][6][7] from infāns (“young child”), literally "one who cannot speak",^[4][7][8] with the suffix that English has as -ancy.^[5][6] Infāns was a noun use of an adjective meaning "unable to speak", formed from the negative prefix in- and the present participle of for (“to speak”),^[9][4] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *bha- (“to speak, tell, say”).^[4] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from the early 12th century, meaning childhood, immaturity and also legal minority.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Childhood or youth: Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century, in the senses "babyhood" and "childhood, youth".^[4] The Middle English forms enfaunce and infaunce occur in the parts of the Romaunt of the Rose counted among the Chaucer apocrypha, meaning the time of youth.^[2][3] The OED, whose entry has not been fully revised, first records the sense "the earliest period of human life" before 1513, in Robert Fabyan's chronicle,^[5][11] and Dictionary.com dates the word 1485–95.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense, the earliest stage of anything that develops, is recorded from 1555, in Richard Eden's translation of Peter Martyr,^[5][11] and "infants collectively" from 1609, in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.^[5][11] In law the word meant the condition of being a minor, which under common law lasted until the age of 21;^[5][4][13] the OED records this from 1658.^[5] Dryden used it in 1697 for "second childhood", dotage.^[5] Milton revived the etymological sense, inability or unwillingness to speak, in 1642, but this use did not last beyond 1670.^[5][11] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the first part of life", adding that naturalists usually extended it to seven years.^[14] According to Etymonline, the restriction of the word to the first months of life returns to its etymological sense but is recent in English.^[4]

Timeline

• late 14th century – babyhood; childhood, youth.^[4]
• before 1513 – the earliest period of human life (OED).^[5]
• 1555 – figurative, the earliest stage of anything.^[5][11]
• 1609 – infants collectively.^[5][11]
• 1642–1670 – speechlessness, silence (obsolete).^[5][11]
• 1658 – in law, the condition of being a minor.^[5][11]
• 1697 – second childhood, dotage.^[5][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The state or period of being an infant; early childhood: She had been sickly in infancy but grew strong.^[13][15][5]
2. The first or earliest stage of something's growth or development: Space tourism is still in its infancy.^[13][15][5]
3. Infants as a group.^[13][5][6]
4. (law) The period of life before a person reaches legal majority; minority.^[13][15][5]

Related words

• infant
• infantry
• infantile
• fable
• fame
• fate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
3. ^ a b Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster