Etymologically
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inmate

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈɪn.meɪt/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English in (“inside”) + mate (“companion”).[2][3][4][5][6] The OED, the Shorter Oxford, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English think the first element was probably at first inn, a dwelling, and was later associated with the adverb in.[4][7][8][9] Johnson (1755) also explained the word as in and mate.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

One who lives with others in the same house, especially a lodger or subtenant: 1589, in an Act of Parliament of the 31st year of Elizabeth I.[4][3][7] Etymonline glosses the early word as one allowed to live, usually for payment, in a house rented by another,[2] and Merriam-Webster dates it to 1580.[11]

Semantic evolution

Before 1600, in Richard Hooker, the word was used of someone who did not properly belong to the place where he lived, a stranger, often figuratively.[4][12] From 1609 it meant more generally one of the people occupying a house.[4] Johnson (1755) quoted Cowell's legal definition, persons admitted to live for money in separate rooms of another man's house and going in and out by one door, and Milton's line on the serpent, "inmate bad".[10] An adjective, dwelling in the same house, is recorded from 1656 and is now probably obsolete.[4][12] The application to a person confined in a public institution appears only in 1834, of an inmate of a lunatic asylum;[3][2] this is now the main sense, and the older one is rare or archaic.[7][13][9]

Timeline

  • 1589 – a person who lives with others in a house, especially a lodger.[4][3]
  • before 1600 – a stranger, one who does not belong to the place, often figurative.[4]
  • 1609 – one of the occupants of a house.[4]
  • 1656 – adjective, dwelling in the same house.[4]
  • 1755 – Johnson defines inmates by Cowell's legal definition.[10]
  • 1834 – a person confined in a public institution.[3][2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A person confined in an institution, such as a prison or a hospital: The inmates of the jail were allowed one visit a week.[13][14][5][9]
  2. (archaic) One of several people who live together in the same house.[13][5][9][11]
  3. (obsolete) A lodger or subtenant.[11][7][4]

Adjective

  1. (archaic) Living in the house of another; dwelling with others.[11][4]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt