ingest

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ingestus, the past participle of ingerō (“to carry in, put or push in, pour in”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from in- (“in, into”) and gerō (“to carry, bear”).^[2][3][7][8] Barnhart calls the Latin verb of uncertain origin.^[4] The OED compares digest and egest, from the same Latin verb with other prefixes.^[2] The scientific noun ingesta, substances taken into the body, is the Latin neuter plural of the participle.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To put, push or thrust in: 1617, in S. Collins's Epphata to F. T., a sense now obsolete.^[2][4] The sense "to take food into the body" follows in 1620, in T. Venner's Via Recta.^[2][4][5] Etymonline dates the verb to the 1610s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The general sense "to put in" did not last, and the word settled on the physiological sense of taking food or drink into the stomach.^[2][6] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to throw into the stomach", quoting Browne's Vulgar Errours on iron eaten by the ostrich.^[9] It was later extended to taking in anything, such as visitors or ideas, as if by swallowing,^[5] and to a jet engine sucking in an object such as a bird.^[10] The noun ingestion is recorded from the same year as the food sense, 1620.^[4]

Timeline

• 1617 – to put in, push in (obsolete).^[2][4]
• 1620 – to take food into the stomach.^[2][4][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take food, drink or medicine into the body by swallowing or absorbing: The dog had ingested a sock and needed surgery.^[5][10][6]
2. To take in or absorb something, as if by eating: The students struggled to ingest so many new theories in one term.^[5]
3. Of a jet engine: to suck in an object, such as a bird.^[10]
4. (obsolete, 1617) To put, push or thrust something in.^[2][4]

Word family

• ingestion
• ingestive
• ingestible
• uningested
• reingest

Related words

• digest
• egest
• ingesta
• gesture
• congest
• suggest

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
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. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins