The story
- Latin · derived from-ēns
- Old French · derived from-ent
- Middle English · inherited from-ent
- English today-ent
From Middle English -ent, also -ant, -aunt, etc., from Old French -ent and its source Latin -ēns (accusative singular -entem), suffix of present participles of verbs in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th conjugations.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.