ingot

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ingot, first meaning a mould for casting metal,^[2][3] and its origin is debated: the OED finds the evidence too contradictory for a certain conclusion.^[3] Most etymological dictionaries take it as English, literally "poured in", formed from Middle English in + goten (“poured”),^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} and several say only "perhaps",^{[10][11][12][13][14][15]} goten being the past participle of Old English gēotan (“to pour”), from Proto-Indo-European *gheu- (“to pour”).^[4][5] Wiktionary starts from the Old English past participle ingoten, and Dictionary.com from gote (“a stream”).^[1][16] Barnhart and Weekley compare German Einguss (“ingot mould, pouring in”).^[5][17] On this view the French word for an ingot was borrowed from English, the article fusing with the noun,^[6][7][17] and Barnhart notes that this is the usual opinion, with some question of chronology.^[5] The other side reverses the direction: the Middle English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Webster's New World make the English word borrowed from Middle French lingot (“a mass of cast metal”), with the initial l- wrongly split off as the article.^[2][18][19] The French word is then traced through Old Occitan lingot to lenga (“tongue”), from Latin lingua, for the bar's long shape.^{[15][19][1][18][3]} The American Heritage Dictionary gives both sides as "perhaps".^[15] The OED objects to each: an alchemists' term is unlikely to begin in English, French records only "mass of metal" from 1405 while English before the later 16th century shows only "mould"; but goten had already become ȝoten before the 14th century, and a hard g surviving in an old compound should have given ingote.^[3] It also notes Medieval Latin lingotus (1440), Spanish lingote and Portuguese linhota, perhaps all from French.^[3] Wiktionary thinks ingot and lingot are in all likelihood the same word, with the direction of borrowing hard to establish.^[1] Johnson derived it from French or from Dutch ingegoten (“melted”).^[20]

Earliest recorded meaning

A mould in which metal is cast: about 1386 in the OED,^[3] about 1395 in Barnhart and the Middle English Dictionary, in Chaucer's Canon's Yeoman's Tale: "He took the chalk and shoop it in the wise Of an ingot".^[5][2] Chaucer has the word seven times.^[21]

Semantic evolution

The word moved from the mould to what comes out of it, and the dictionaries date the change differently: the OED quotes "mass of cast metal" from 1423,^[3] Etymonline from the early 15th century,^[4] Barnhart from 1583,^[5] and the Shorter Oxford and Ayto from the late 16th century.^[10][6] The older sense continued alongside it, in an indenture of 1469,^[2] and until 1738 in the OED and the late 18th century in the Shorter Oxford.^[3][10] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "a mass of metal", quoting Spenser, Shakespeare and Dryden.^[20] Used especially of gold or silver, it extended in more recent use to steel.^[3][10] In Cornwall it meant tin cast in a small oblong iron mould.^[22] The OED regards the form ingold in one Chaucer manuscript as a scribal error, and Spenser's ingowe as a misprint or a mistaken archaism.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1386 – a mould for casting metal (obsolete after 1738).^[3] Barnhart and the Middle English Dictionary date it to about 1395.^[5][2]
• 1423 – a mass of cast metal, especially gold or silver.^[3] Barnhart dates this to 1583.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A block of cast metal, usually oblong, especially of gold, silver or steel, kept for storage, transport or later working: gold ingots stacked in the vault.^{[13][18][3][11]}
2. (obsolete, 1386–1738) A mould in which metal is cast.^{[3][2][18][10]}

Verb

1. To shape metal into ingots.^[13]

Related words

• lingot
• found
• language

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
15. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
16. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
17. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
18. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
19. ^ a b Webster's New World College Dictionary (2014), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
20. ^ 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.
21. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
22. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)