-entsuffix

Etymology: < French -ent < classical Latin -ent- , -ēns , the ending of present participles of verbs of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th conjugation, as rīdent- , current- , audient- . In Old French this suffix and the corresponding -ant- of the 1st conjugation were levelled under -ant , the sole ending of the French present participle, as riant , courant , mourant , levant ( < Latin levant- ). At a later time many Latin forms in -ent- , which had acquired an adjective sense, were adopted in French as adjectives with the -ent unchanged, as diligent , évident ; some of these were duplicates of living participial forms in -ant , as convénient beside convenant , provident beside pourvoyant , confident beside confiant . The French words in -ant , -ent , which were adopted into English, have generally retained the form of the suffix which they had in French; but since 1500 there has been a tendency to refashion them after Latin, and hence several words in -ant have changed that ending for -ent , either entirely or in certain senses. In modern English also many Latin words in -ent- have been directly adopted, always in the form -ent . The conflict between English and French analogies occasions frequent inconsistency and uncertainty in the present spelling of words with this suffix; compare e.g. assistant n., persistent adj.; attendant adj., superintendent n.; dependant n., independent adj.In the participles of the 3rd and 4th conjugation this ending represents Indo-European -nt-, or perhaps -ent-, of the ablaut-series -ent-, -ont-, -nt-; compare Sanskrit -ant-, -at-, ancient Greek -οντ-, Gothic -and-, Old English -end-; in those of the 2nd conjugation it represents this suffix combined with the thematic -e- of the verb; similarly the -ant- of the 1st conjugation includes a thematic -a-.