Etymology: Middle English endite-n , < Anglo-Norman endite-r to indict, charge, accuse, corresponds in form to Old French enditer , -ditier , -ditter , answering to a late Latin type *indictāre , < in- (in- prefix³) + dictāre to say, declare, dictate v. But the Old French verb is recorded only in the senses ‘make known, indicate, dictate, suggest, compose, write, instruct, inform, prompt, incite’ (Godefroy), so that the history of the Anglo-Norman and Middle English word is not clear. A corresponding medieval Latin indictāre to indict, accuse, is cited by Du Cange only in English legal use, and seems to be merely the latinized form of the Anglo-Norman and Middle English verb, in accordance with which again the Middle English endite has been altered to indite , and (since 1600) written indict , though the spoken word remains indite . See also indite v.The sense of endite , indict , may have arisen from Latin indīcĕre ‘to declare publicly’, taken as in Italian indicere ‘to denounce’ (Florio); but it comes near to a sense of Latin indicāre to indicate adj., ‘to give evidence against’; and it appears as if there had been, in late Latin or Romanic, some confusion of the Latin verbs indicāre, indīcĕre, indictāre: thus in Italian, Florio has ‘Indicare, to shew, to declare, to utter; also to endite and accuse, as Indicere’; ‘Indícere, to intimate, denounce, manifest, declare;..also to accuse, to appeach or detect’; ‘Indittare, to indite; also as Indicere’; ‘Indittore, an inditer, a denouncer; also an intimator’.

Etymology: < Latin indict-, participial stem of indīcĕre to declare, proclaim, announce, appoint, < in- (in- prefix³) + dīcĕre to say, tell, declare, etc.: compare addict, contradict, predict. In Old French endire, indire, past participle in 16th cent. indict (Godefroy). which may have contributed to the formation of the English word.