Infant

How to spell infant

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce infant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does infant mean?

1. nounA very young child, especially one not yet able to walk or talk.

Infant in a sentence

• The newborn infant slept soundly through the night.

• Each infant at the clinic received a routine health check.

Where does infant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word infant comes from the Latin infans, meaning literally 'not speaking' or 'unable to speak', built from the negative prefix in- ('not') and the present participle of fari ('to speak'). The original idea was that a very young child has not yet learned to talk, so an infant was by definition someone still without speech. It entered English in the 1300s through Old French enfant, and early on it could describe any young child, not just a baby. The same fari root, meaning 'to speak', also lies behind words such as 'fable' and 'preface', where speaking and storytelling are central. In British legal language infant long carried the extended sense of any person under the age of majority, a usage still found in older statutes.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• fant (from fari: to speak)