We all know what an infant is–a newborn baby. Pretty simple. What I didn’t realize was that it actually comes from the Latin in meaning “not” and fari meaning “to speak.” So it literally means “unable to speak.” Who knew? Historically, infant in Latin meant a babe in arms, but then in languages like French and Italian it got applied to all children, hence the French enfant, which just means “child” and the Italian fanciullo.
It’s interesting to note too that historically in English, the word could be applied to any child as well, usually up to about age 7. The word came into use in English in the 1300s, and while the age range has changed over time, the general meaning hasn’t. It’s also worth noting that the Germanic words from which we get child also used to mean “a newborn.”
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.