indite
Americanverb (used with object)
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to compose or write, as a poem.
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to treat in a literary composition.
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Obsolete. to dictate.
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Obsolete. to prescribe.
verb
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archaic to write
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obsolete to dictate
Usage
Indite and inditement are sometimes wrongly used where indict and indictment are meant: he was indicted (not indited ) for fraud
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
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have inditedperfect
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has inditedperfect 3rd person singular
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am inditingprogressive 1st person singular
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is inditingprogressive 3rd person singular
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have been inditingperfect progressive
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has been inditingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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are inditingprogressive
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inditingparticiple
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inditessingular 3rd person
Past
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had inditedperfect
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had been inditingperfect progressive
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was inditingprogressive singular
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were inditingprogressive plural
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inditedparticiple
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inditedsimple
Future
Etymology
Origin of indite
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English enditen, from Old French enditer, from unattested Vulgar Latin indictāre, derivative of Latin indictus, past participle of indīcere “to announce, proclaim”; see in- 2, dictum
Explanation
The verb indite, rarely used today, means "compose" or "put down in writing," like when you find a quiet place to sit down with your notebook and pen and indite a journal entry or a first draft of a short story. To indite is to write something creative — you indite a letter, and jot a grocery list. Don't confuse indite with its homophone indict, which means "to charge with a crime." Both come from the Latin word dictare, meaning “to declare.” Even if you indite a really bad poem, critics won't indict you.
Vocabulary lists containing indite
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Commonly Confused Words, List 5
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Paradise Lost
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I was about to indite my valedictory; then came your manifesto�Dec. 29 issue�affirming your determination to hold fast to all those virtues for the presumed jettisoning of which I was about to leave you.
From Time Magazine Archive
Even in the White House he never dictated or used a typewriter, "and the number of letters he could indite with his own heavy fist was limited."
From Time Magazine Archive
He that would triumph over the petty trickery of fate must indite history at its source.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
So he went to the pope and begged him to indite an inquiry to the lawyer.
From For the Right by Franzos, Karl Emil
May it please your Holiness There are possibly two, Or it may be three, Men In Europe Who could indite this Ode Without treading on anybody's corns.
From Outlook Odes by Crosland, T. W. H. (Thomas William Hodgson)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
