The story
- Latin · derived fromnātīvus
- Old French · derived fromnatif
- Middle English · inherited fromnatif
- English todaynative
Inherited from Middle English natif, from Old French natif, from Latin nātīvus, from nātus (“birth”). Doublet of naive and neif. Displaced native Middle English thedisch, equivalent to (puristic) theed + -ish. By surface analysis, Latin nat- + -ive. Compare also inborn.
Words from the same roots
Latinnātīvus all →
naiveneifnief
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.