Other forms: infants
An infant is a baby in its first year. A newborn infant, infant mortality, infant school.
Infant mortality is the number of deaths before the first birthday per thousand births, and it is the single most revealing figure about a country's health system. In English schools the infants are the youngest classes. Note that the Latin means unable to speak, from in- plus fari, to speak.
1nouninfantA baby in its first year.
“The nurse showed the new parents how to bathe their infant.”
infant is a baby.
The Latin is in-, not, and fari, to speak. An infant is simply the one who cannot speak yet.
hooks ontospeak
Latin infans means not speaking — in-, not, plus fari, to speak. Fame and fable come from the same speaking.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰeh₂-
Anglo-Norman
enfanter
Latin
īnfantem
Middle English
infaunt
English, today
infant
Built from
Middle English infaunt, Latin īnfantem, accusative masculine singular of īnfāns, nominal use of the adjective meaning 'not able to speak', from īn- (“not”) + fāns, present participle of for (“to speak”). The verb is from Anglo-Norman enfanter, from the same Latin source. a doublet of infante.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA