Etymologically
Log in

inning

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 21:08. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English innynge (“a getting in”),[2][3] inherited from Old English innung (“a putting in, a taking in”),[4][3][5] a verbal noun formed on innian (“to put or bring in, to lodge”), from inn (“in, within”).[4][2][6] The OED treats the modern word as formed within English from the adverb and verb in with the suffix -ing.[7][8] It compares Old Frisian inninge (“income”), Middle Dutch inninge (“collection of fines or payments”), Middle High German innunge (“guild, corporation”) and Old Norse inning (“fulfilment of a legal agreement”).[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English, a putting or getting in, and what was got in: contents, income.[7][8] Barnhart finds it before 899, in Alfred's translation of Boethius.[3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English ynnynge was the getting in of crops, the harvest, a sense first found in Hoccleve about 1407 and now only regional or historical.[7][3] From the early 16th century it also meant the taking in or enclosing of land, especially the reclaiming of marsh or flooded ground, and in the plural the reclaimed land itself.[7][3][9] The games sense comes from the side that is "in", at the bat: in cricket a side's turn at batting is recorded from 1721 in the OED, while Etymonline and Merriam-Webster date it to 1735 and Barnhart to 1738, in the form innings.[7][4][10][3] Webster in 1828 still gave the harvest sense first and the cricket sense second.[11] British English kept innings for cricket, and the singular inning became the American word for a unit of play in baseball, recorded from 1845.[7][12] The figurative sense of a turn or chance to act appears in Dickens's Pickwick Papers (1836) as innings, and as inning, chiefly in the United States, from 1885.[3][7]

Timeline

  • before 899 – Old English innung, a putting or taking in.[3]
  • ?1407 – the gathering in of crops, in Hoccleve.[7][3]
  • 1528 – the enclosing of land, especially reclaimed marsh.[7][12]
  • 1721 – in cricket, a side's turn at batting.[7][12]
  • 1735 – a team's turn in a game, according to Etymonline and Merriam-Webster.[4][10]
  • 1845 – a unit of play in baseball.[7][12]
  • 1885 – figuratively, a turn or period of power or opportunity.[7][12]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (baseball) One of the nine divisions of a regular game, in which each team takes one turn at bat and one in the field.
  2. (cricket) A side's or a player's turn at batting; in British use usually innings.
  3. A turn or chance to act or have one's say; a period of power or influence.
  4. (archaic) The reclamation of land from the sea or from marshes; in the plural, land reclaimed in this way.

Usage notes

According to Barry Popik, Manhattan College has claimed to have started baseball's "seventh-inning stretch" in 1882, although a similar stretch is recorded at a Cincinnati game in 1869.[13]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ Webster, Noah (1828), An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse
  12. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Seventh-inning stretch", 7 June 2006