Infants

How to spell infants

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce infants

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does infants mean?

1. nounVery young children or babies, plural.

Infants in a sentence

• The clinic offers free health checks for infants under two.

• The airline allows infants to travel on a parent's lap without a separate ticket.

Where does infants come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin infans, which literally meant 'unable to speak', formed from the negative prefix in- ('not') joined to a form of the verb fari ('to speak'). The idea was that a very young child had not yet learned to talk, so the same root that gives us 'fable' and 'fate' (both tied to speaking) sits quietly inside this word. Latin infans passed into Old French as enfant, and English borrowed it in the late 1300s, keeping the original Latin spelling with its silent-looking 'in-' rather than the French 'en-'. Over time the meaning broadened from a wordless baby to a young child generally, and in British education it even came to name a school stage. The spelling trap for adults is mild: the word sounds like it might want a double consonant or a tricky ending, but it is simply infant plus a plain -s.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• fant (from Latin fari: to speak)
• -s (plural noun suffix)