English

infrequency

Infrequency comes from Latin infrequentia ‘scantiness’, from frequentia ‘crowd, multitude’, and ultimately from Proto-Italic *frekʷents.

Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*frekʷentsreconstructed
Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrequens‘crowded, crammed, packed’
Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrequentia‘crowd, multitude’
Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEinfrequentia‘scantiness’
Englishearliest quotation 1657infrequency

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*frekʷentsreconstructed
Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrequens‘crowded, crammed, packed’
Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrequentia‘crowd, multitude’
Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEinfrequentia‘scantiness’
Englishearliest quotation 1657infrequency

Earliest quotation: 1657, Philemon, The Philosophie: “[…]it was the solitude and infrequency of the place…”

Formed from in- + frequency

Proto-Indo-European *h₁én ‘in’

Proto-Germanic *in ‘into’

English in-

Proto-Italic *frekʷents

Latin frequens ‘crowded, crammed, packed’

Latin frequentia ‘crowd, multitude, throng’

English frequency

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰrekʷ- ‘to condense’

through Latin frequens ‘crowded, crammed, packed’

frequent, 2 more

Today it means

noun The characteristic of being infrequent.

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

Etymograph / Proto-Italic *frekʷents / infrequency

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