inquest

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English enqueste, also anqueste and inqueste,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French enqueste (“inquiry”),^{[5][4][3][6][7]} now enquête.^[4][7] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the late 12th century, for an inquiry or judicial inquisition, a report of one, and the jury that held it.^[8] It comes from Vulgar Latin *inquaesīta (“thing inquired into”),^[6][3][7] the noun use of the feminine past participle of *inquaerō, a form remodelled after quaerō (“to seek”),^[7][3][9] for Latin inquīrō (“to search into, inquire”).^[6][4][10] The OED and the Shorter Oxford give the Romance and Medieval Latin form as inquēsta,^[5][11] which the same source gave to inchiesta and enquesta.^[5][7][4] Dictionary.com takes the spelling with “in-” from the Medieval Latin, replacing the French-based form,^[12] and Etymonline dates its prevalence to the 18th century.^[4] The word is related to inquire, conquest and request.^[7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A legal or judicial inquiry into a matter of fact, especially one made by a jury: about 1290, in the life of Thomas Becket in the South English Legendary.^[5] Etymonline dates it to the late 13th century and Barnhart to about 1300.^[4][3] The Middle English Dictionary's first quotation, from before 1325, is about a trial by a jury that was drawn from the community.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English an inquest was any formal inquiry into a matter of public interest, often by a jury acting under a bailiff or mayor.^[2][13][3] By the early 14th century the word also meant the jury itself (about 1305),^[5] now chiefly a coroner's jury, a use Hoad dates to the 14th century,^[14] and in religious writing the great or last inquest was the Last Judgement (about 1315).^[5] The general sense of a question or questioning (about 1400, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) and of a search or quest (1470, in Malory) have both died out.^[5] The grand inquest was a grand jury from 1467, and the grand inquest of the nation was a name for the House of Commons.^[5] Weekley notes that the word was first stressed on the second syllable, which is why it could be shortened to crowner's 'quest, the coroner's inquest.^[9] Johnson (1755) defined it as a judicial inquiry.^[15] In Britain the usual sense is now a coroner's inquiry into a death,^[13][16] and since 1635 the word has also been used of any inquiry, now colloquially of a discussion of a game or event after it is over.^[5] In Scotland the old sense of a formal inquiry was obsolete by the time of the English Dialect Dictionary.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1290 – a legal inquiry into a matter of fact, especially by a jury.^[5]
• c. 1305 – the body of men appointed to hold such an inquiry; a jury.^[5]
• c. 1315 – figuratively, the last inquest, the Last Judgement.^[5]
• c. 1400 – an inquiry or questioning (obsolete by 1845).^[5]
• 1467 – grand inquest, a grand jury.^[5]
• 1470 – a search, a quest (obsolete by 1679).^[5]
• 1635 – any inquiry or investigation.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An official inquiry, held by a coroner and sometimes with a jury, into the cause of a sudden, violent or unexplained death: The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death.^[16][18][5]
2. Any judicial or official inquiry, especially one held before a jury.^[18][5]
3. The jury or other body that holds such an inquiry.^[18][5]
4. The finding of such a jury, or the document recording it.^[18]
5. (informal) Any inquiry or investigation, especially a discussion of what went wrong after a game or event: the usual inquest after the team's defeat.^[16][5]

Related words

• inquisitor
• inquisition
• inquire
• enquire
• inquiry
• quest
• conquest
• request
• query
• coroner

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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ 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)
18. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster