English
recent
Recent comes from Latin recēns ‘new, recent, lately, newly, green, refreshed’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ken-.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ken-1‘new’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CErecēns2‘new’
- Englishearliest quotation 2012recent2
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, Latin recens
- 2 Wiktionary, English recent
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2012, Jason R. Rich, Your iPad 2 at Work: “Obviously, the first time you launch this app, your…”.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ken-Wiktionary, Latin recens‘new’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CErecēnsWiktionary, English recent‘new’
- Englishearliest quotation 2012recentWiktionary, English recent. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2012, Jason R. Rich, Your iPad 2 at Work: “Obviously, the first time you launch this app, your…”
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with recent, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *ken- ‘new, fresh’
- nod ← nodden ← *hnodian ← *hnodōn ← *hnudōną
- incinerate ← incinerātus ← incinerō ← cinis ← *kenis
- nosh ← נאַשן ← naschen ← naskōn ← *hnaskwōn
- nookie ← neuken ← *noken ← *nuken ← *hnukēn
- cinerea ← cinereus ← cinis ← *kenis
21 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
adj Having happened a short while ago.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “recent”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin recens. 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 *ken- / recent