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http://www.militaryimages.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4011 Word History: So, you have wondered when the infantry was composed of infants. It is a good question since this Good Word should refer to a collection of babies. In fact, however, it comes from French infanterie, a word the French borrowed from Old Italian infanteria, which was a collection of infante "youth, foot soldier." The Italian word came down from Latin infans "infant", its meaning rusted a bit in the river of time. Now it really gets interesting. The Latin infans (infant- with endings) was a derivation from in- "not" + fans, the present participle of fari "to speak", i.e. "not speaking". For those of you who doubt that humans are distinguished from other species by speech, harken: even the ancestors of the Romans thought so.

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16y ago

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