Etymologically
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infancy

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈɪnfənsi/[1]

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]

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