Etymograph

English

profundicate

Profundicate comes from Latin profundus ‘profound’, from fundus ‘bottom’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰudʰmḗn1‘bottom’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰudʰnós1reconstructed
  3. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰundʰós1reconstructed
  4. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*fundos1reconstructed
  5. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfundus2‘bottom’
  6. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEprofundus3‘profound’
  7. Englishearliest quotation 1976profundicate3

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin fundus
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Latin profundus
  3. 3 Wiktionary, English profundicate
  4. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1976, James H. Boren, The Bureaucratic Zoo: The Search for the Ultimate Mumble: “To profundify or to profundicate: A Borenverb used to…”.

Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰudʰmḗnWiktionary, Latin fundus‘bottom’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰudʰnósWiktionary, Latin fundusreconstructed
  3. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰundʰósWiktionary, Latin fundusreconstructed
  4. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*fundosWiktionary, Latin fundusreconstructed
  5. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfundusWiktionary, Latin profundus‘bottom’
  6. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEprofundusWiktionary, English profundicate‘profound’
  7. Englishearliest quotation 1976profundicateWiktionary, English profundicate. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1976, James H. Boren, The Bureaucratic Zoo: The Search for the Ultimate Mumble: “To profundify or to profundicate: A Borenverb used to…”

Formed from icate

The story

Apparently coined by American humorist James Boren (1925–2010) in When in Doubt, Mumble: A Bureaucrat's Handbook, New York, N.Y.: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1972, →OCLC.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- ‘to sink in’

deep, depth, dumb, dave, deaf, dip, dove, dub, bottomless, typhus, doof, 18 more

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn ‘bottom’

bottom, bot, bourne, 12 more

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰnós

butte, 8 more

through Proto-Italic *fundos

fundamental, fonds, fundus, 8 more

through Latin fundus ‘bottom’

foundation, fund, founder, honda, fond, 11 more

through Latin profundus ‘profound’

profound, 5 more

Today it means

verb To make profound; to make a concept unnecessarily complicated.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “profundicate”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Latin fundus, Latin profundus. 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-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn / profundicate

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