Etymograph

English

incapable

Incapable comes from Middle French incapable, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p-.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*keh₂p-root as named · steps between not traced
  2. Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600incapable
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1962same form

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*keh₂p-root as named · steps between not traced
  2. Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600incapable
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1962same form

Earliest quotation: 1962, Brian Haresnape, Focus on B.R. passenger stations: “The British people seem incapable of avoiding the habit…”

Formed from in- + capable

Proto-Indo-European *h₁én ‘in’

Proto-Germanic *in ‘into’

English in-

Latin capiō ‘to take, hold’

Late Latin capābilis ‘comprehensible’

Middle French capable

English capable

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p-

princess, receiver, principal, receipt, receptor, participant, unacceptable, inception, interception, perceptive, recuperate, recuperation, occupier, princely, misbehave, incipient, 9 more

Today it means

adj Not capable (of doing something); unable.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p- / incapable

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