insult

Pronunciation

• IPA: verb: /ɪnˈsʌlt/; noun: /ˈɪn.sʌlt/^[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Middle French insulter, a learned borrowing of Latin īnsultāre (“to assail, leap upon”),^[2][3][4] a frequentative of īnsilīre, to leap at or upon,^[2][3] from in-, on, and salīre, to leap (see sally and salient).^[2][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To exult or brag insolently, to triumph scornfully over: 1570–76,^[2] the 1560s in Etymonline; a sense now obsolete.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Latin īnsultāre was already used in Cicero's time in the sense to scoff, revile.^[3] The modern sense, to treat with scorn or abuse, is first recorded in 1620,^[2] the 1610s in Etymonline.^[3] The noun first meant an attack or assault, especially a military one (1603, in Holland's Plutarch),^[2][6][7] from French insulte or Late Latin īnsultus;^[2][3] insulting speech or behaviour is from 1671, in Milton's Paradise Regained.^[2][6] In medicine, anything that injures the body or causes disease is called an insult (1904).^[6]

Timeline

• 1570–76 – to exult scornfully.^[2]
• 1603 – an attack (noun).^[2][6]
• 1620 – to treat with scorn.^[2]
• 1671 – an insulting act.^[2][6]
• 1904 – a bodily injury (medicine).^[6]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To speak to or treat with rudeness or contempt; to offend or affront.
2. (obsolete) To attack.

Noun

1. An offensive or contemptuous remark or act.
2. (medicine) An injury or trauma to the body.

Word family

• insulter
• insultingly
• insultable
• uninsulted

Related words

• insolence
• insultation
• sally
• salient
• assault
• result
• exult

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press