Negatives with "in"

All the words below have the prefix "in-" meaning "not," as their first element. The problem is that even though many of the words have negative senses in Modern English, their positive counterparts have fallen out of use, or existed only in Latin. These words may have been part of a pair, once upon a time, but their partners are no more. Through the illustrative sentences and the linguistic tidbits below, we have tried to make the history of these negative words with "in-" clearer and hopefully easier to remember.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. insipid
    lacking interest or significance or impact
    “The people work hard, but they get to relax a bit. It’s not stodgy, dull and insipid,” he said.
    –Washington Post, Aug 29, 2014
    Originally meaning "lacking in taste" this word comes from "in-" and sapere "to have a taste/be wise"
  2. incorrigible
    impervious to correction by punishment
    Perhaps this boy is incorrigibly hostile, but it sounds as if he may have had a hard and troubled life.
    —Slate Apr 7, 2014
    Corrigere "To correct", is the Latin root here.
  3. indemnity
    protection against future loss
    When the various payments to the industry are counted, the program costs $1.44 for every $1 in indemnities to the grower, according to his calculations.
    —Reuters Jun 20, 2012
    indemnity comes from in- plus Latin damnum meaning "damage" or "hurt." The sense here is that the protection of an indemnity makes it so the damage or injury did not happen.
  4. indolence
    inactivity resulting from a dislike of work
    But it is also to do with a work culture that shuns initiative and rewards indolence.
    —The Guardian Jul 3, 2014
    indolence has changed its meaning over the years. It originally meant "freedom from pain" with Latin elements in- and dolentum which together meant "not grieving." While this meaning dates from the 17th century our current definition dates from the early 18th century and came about through an extended sense of the word meaning "avoiding trouble" if you take the possibility of avoiding trouble to its logical conclusion, you arrive at an extreme laziness.
  5. ineffable
    defying expression or description
    I do seek comfort in the ineffable and the inexpressible, in mysteries we will never solve.
    –Salon Feb 15, 2014
    There once was an English word effable, meaning "speakable," but the Oxford English Dictionary's last citation of it is from 1872. The Latin root is effari "utter."
  6. inexorable
    impossible to prevent, resist, or stop
    “Just as German unification represented the inexorable tide of history, I believe that Korean unification is a matter of historical inevitability,” she said.
    —Time Mar 31, 2014
    It is the last part of the definition, "not to be moved by entreaty," that is the key to understanding the etymology. The Latin exorabilis meant "able to be entreated." If you break this word down further, you get orare "pray", which is the root of words like oration and oratory.
  7. infest
    occupy in large numbers or live on a host
    The house, condemned by the local council as "insanitary and unsafe", has been infested with mice, cockroaches and bed-bugs.
    –BBC Aug 29, 2014
    The Latin infestus, from which this word derives, meant " unable to be seized or handled" and though this is not the exact definition we have today in English, it gives a good sense of how overwhelming an infestation of any sort can be.
  8. infirm
    lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality
    Next, imagine if when that time came, a new disease wiped out all the productive adults - leaving only people under 18 and the extremely infirm.
    —Economist Nov 26, 2013
    Latin firmus meant "strong" and "steadfast". Unlike many of the words here, "firm" is still used in English, usually with the meaning of "solid" or "secure."
  9. ingrate
    a person who shows no thankfulness or appreciation
    Those who yawn at such achievements, he denounced, calling them “ingrates.”
    —Salon Jun 6, 2012
    Ultimately derived from the Latin in- plus gratus , which meant "pleasing, beloved, dear, agreeable." The Latin ingratus also meant ungrateful, which was the meaning that made it to English.
  10. injury
    physical damage to the body caused by violence or accident
    It awarded a handful of multimillion-dollar grants to test brain-stimulation systems for purposes such as restoring memory and treating traumatic brain injury.
    —Nature Sep 29, 2014
    The Latin injurius meant "wrongful, unjust" and consisted of in- "not" and iuris, "right, law." Although it's possible to get injured outside a legal context, the traces of the legal origins of this word persist- iuris is also at the heart of words like jurist and jury.
  11. innocuous
    not injurious to physical or mental health
    He decided on a course of resistance, refusing to aid the enemy even when their demands seemed relatively innocuous.
    —BBC (Sep 16, 2014)
    The Latin word nocuus meaning "hurtful" is the negated partner here. You might recognize the English word noxious which means "hurtful or injurious", which comes from a related Latin word and Proto-Indo European root.
  12. inordinate
    beyond normal limits
    Theirs are lives of “emptiness, and aimlessness and isolation,” due to an inordinate focus on “affluence, credentials, and prestige.”
    —Forbes Sep 23, 2014
    Inordinate originally meant "not ordered" and from there it is easy to see the effect the in- prefix had on the Latin ordinare "to set in order." The current meaning is an aspect of the older meaning, with the "excessive" sense of " normal limits" replacing the sense of order those limits can impose.
  13. insouciant
    marked by unconcern
    Its performance is almost perfect: an apparently insouciant ease belies the intensely clever, dynamic writing and carefully limited perspective.
    —The Guardian May 3, 2013
    The closest linguistic relative that this word has which sheds light on its meaning is the French verb which means "caring", souciant. The Latin precursor of the French, sollicitare actually means "to agitate," and is also at the root of the English word solicit.
  14. intact
    undamaged in any way
    My father’s remarkable intellect and photographic memory were intact.
    —New York Times Sep 25, 2014
    tactus is a form of the Latin for "to touch", so, similar to indemnity above, the sense is not of merely surviving trauma, but that the trauma did not even take place.
  15. intrepid
    invulnerable to fear or intimidation
    This weekend, intrepid travelers will journey to Norway’s remote Sandhornøy island to celebrate the heritage and landscape of the Arctic region.
    —Architectural Digest Aug 29, 2014
    From Latin in-, "not" plus trepidus "alarmed." trepidus is also the root for the English trepidation.
  16. invincible
    incapable of being overcome or subdued
    “And here he is: the unconquerable, invincible, unbeatable Cigar!” he said as the horse came to the finish line.
    —New York Times Aug 31, 2014
    The Latin verb vincere, which meant " to overcome" is the missing peice needed in order to decipher where invincible came from
Created on Tue Sep 30 15:14:24 EDT 2014 (updated Thu Aug 15 14:08:23 EDT 2019)

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