Etymograph

English

concatenate

Concatenate comes from Latin concatēnāre ‘to link or chain together’, and goes back to Proto-Italic *katesnā.

  1. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*katesnā1reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcatēna1‘a chain’
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcatēnō1‘chain, bind’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEconcatēnāre1‘to link or chain together’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1947concatenate1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English concatenate
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1947, Ivan Mackenzie Lamb, A monograph of the lichen genus Placopsis Nyl: “The Nostocoid type consists of small rounded blue-green cells…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*katesnāWiktionary, English concatenatereconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcatēnaWiktionary, English concatenate‘a chain’
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcatēnōWiktionary, English concatenate‘chain, bind’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEconcatēnāreWiktionary, English concatenate‘to link or chain together’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1947concatenateWiktionary, English concatenate. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1947, Ivan Mackenzie Lamb, A monograph of the lichen genus Placopsis Nyl: “The Nostocoid type consists of small rounded blue-green cells…”

Linked words

through Proto-Italic *katesnā

catenin, 8 more

through Latin catēna ‘a chain’

chain, catena, 8 more

Today it means

verb To join or link together, as though in a chain.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “concatenate”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Italic *katesnā / concatenate

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