Chapter 12: Latin Present Participles and Gerundives
§82. English Derivatives from Latin Present Participles
| LATIN VERB |
English derivatives from Latin pres. participle in –ant-/-ent-/-ient– | English derivatives from Latin noun in –antia/-entia/-ientia |
| 1ST CONJUGATION | ||
| portare | important | importance |
| stare | constant, instant, distant, extant | stance, constancy, instance, substance, circumstance[1] |
| 2ND CONJUGATION | ||
| sedere | dissident, president, resident | presidency, residence |
| tenere | abstinent, (in)contient, (im)pertinent | abstinence, (in)continence, (im)pertinence |
| videre | evident, provident (= prudent) | evidence, providence (= prudence) |
| 3RD CONJUGATION | ||
| agere | agent, cogent, exigent, intransigent | agency, cogency, exigency |
| cadere | decadent, accident(al), incident(al), coincident(al), occident(al) | cadence, decadence, incidence, coincidence |
| cedere | antecedent, decedent | antecedence, precedence |
| currere | current, concurrent, recurrent | currency, occurrence, recurrence |
| ferre | afferent, efferent, different, preferent | circumference, conference, inference, interference, preference, transference |
| ponere | component, deponent, exponent, opponent, proponent | |
| loqui | eloquent, grandiloquent | eloquence, grandiloquence |
| sequi | consequent, subsequent | sequence, consequence |
| 3RD CONJUGATION (I-BASE) | ||
| capere | incipient, percipient, recipient | |
| facere | deficient, (co)efficient, proficient, sufficient, abortifacient, rubefacient | efficiency, proficiency, etc. |
| gradi | gradient, ingredient | |
| 4TH CONJUGATION | ||
| salire | salient, resilient | salience, resilience, resiliency |
| sentire | sentient | sentience, sentence [irreg.] |
| venire | (in)convenient | (in)convenience |
These illustrations of the Latin present participle and its English derivatives have been drawn entirely from the verb vocabulary that you met in Chapter 9. In the table, the original Latin forms are not listed, because the English word in -ant or -ent exactly matches the base form of the Latin present participle. Notice that English derivatives of this type are sometimes used as nouns: agent usually means a person “doing”; president, a person “sitting before” (prae- + sedere). For the most part, however, the participial derivatives in -ant or –ent continue to be used as English adjectives, and their etymological and dictionary meanings are often surpisingly close. It is very helpful to know that abstinent means “holding away from,” and that incontinent means (“not holding together”). If you realize that afferent and efferent mean “bringing to” and “bringing from” (ad- and ex- + ferre, with assimilation), you won’t confuse those precise neurological terms. The etymological meaning of provident, “looking forward,” is exactly what that adjective means today; prudent is a doublet—a contraction that goes all the way back to classical Latin. What are the etymological meanings of distant, recurrent, and inconvenient?
- From the Latin noun circum-stant-ia (“a standing around”) came the adjective circum-stant-i-alis, source of the English word circumstantial. ↵
