ingress

Etymology

The noun is inherited from Middle English ingresse,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin ingressus (“an advance; walking; entrance”),^{[5][6][7][8][9]} from the past participle stem of ingredior (“to step into, enter”),^[6][3][7] from in- (“in”) and gradior (“to step, go”),^[5][6][3] from Proto-Indo-European *ghredh- (“to walk, go”).^[6][3] The verb, recorded earlier, comes from the participial stem of the Latin verb.^[5][10][4] Ingredient is from the present participle.^[7] Johnson (1755) also compared French ingres.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb, to go in, is the first to appear, about 1330, in Arthour and Merlin,^[5] and in the early 14th century in Etymonline.^[6] The noun is recorded about 1420 in the OED,^[5] and about 1440 in the MED and Barnhart, in Palladius on Husbondrie, of an entrance way and of the beginning of a month.^[2][7] Etymonline dates the noun to the mid 15th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the Palladius translation ingresse is used for the entrance to a house or town, rendering Latin ingressus, and for the start of a month.^[2] The sense of a beginning is now archaic.^[5][10] The action of going in, with the right to do so, is first quoted in an Act of 1543–4 and lived on in the legal phrase ingress, egress, and regress.^[5] The Shorter Oxford finds the action sense earlier, in the late 15th century.^[10] From 1607 ingress or ingress-money could be a fee paid on entering a society or college.^[5] A learned use arose in the 17th century: in astrology a planet's arrival at the place of another planet (1603), then the sun's entrance into a sign of the zodiac (1652), and in astronomy the first contact of an inferior planet with the sun, or of a satellite with its planet, at a transit (1753).^[5] Johnson (1755) gave simply "entrance; power of entrance".^[11] The verb has remained rare,^[10] and the OED labels it now American.^[5] Etymonline notes that it is sometimes called American English, but that it is attested from the early 14th century.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – verb, to enter, go in.^[5][6]
• c. 1420 – noun, a place or means of entrance; a beginning.^[5]
• 1543 – the action of going in; the right of entrance.^[5]
• 1603 – in astrology, the arrival of a planet at the place of another.^[5]
• 1607 – an entrance fee, also ingress-money.^[5]
• before 1631 – transitive verb, to enter, invade, in Donne (obsolete).^[5]
• 1652 – in astronomy, the entrance of the sun into a sign of the zodiac.^[5]
• 1753 – the first contact of an inferior planet with the sun, or a satellite with its planet, at a transit.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of going or coming in; entry: the ingress of cold air through the vent.^{[12][3][4][5]}
2. The right or permission to enter: The lease guarantees ingress at all hours.^{[12][3][4][5]}
3. A way in; an entrance: a narrow ingress to the courtyard.^{[12][3][4][5]}
4. (astronomy) The start of a transit or eclipse, when the Moon enters the Earth's shadow, or a planet the Sun's disk, or the Sun a sign of the zodiac.^[12][4][5]
5. (astrology) The arrival of a planet at the place of another, the ascendant or the midheaven.^[4][5]
6. (archaic) The beginning of something.^[5][10]

Verb

1. (rare; now chiefly US) To go in; to enter.^[5][4][10]

Word family

• ingression
• ingressive

Related words

• ingredient
• congress
• egress
• progress
• regress
• retrogress
• grade
• gradient

Usage notes

The noun is usually stressed on the first syllable and the verb on the second.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
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 f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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.
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins