indite

American  

[in-dahyt] / ɪnˈdaɪt /

verb (used with object)

• indites,
  present (3rd person singular)
• indited,
  past participle,  past
• inditing
  present participle

1. to compose or write, as a poem.

2. to treat in a literary composition.

3. Obsolete. to dictate.

4. Obsolete. to prescribe.

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indite British  

/ ɪnˈdaɪt /

verb

1. archaic to write

2. obsolete to dictate

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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

• inditement
  noun
• inditer
  noun

Inflected Forms

Participles

• inditing
  present
• indited
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• indite
  simple
• indites
  simple
• have indited
  perfect
• has indited
  perfect
• am inditing
  progressive
• are inditing
  progressive
• is inditing
  progressive
• have been inditing
  perfect progressive
• has been inditing
  perfect progressive

Past

• indited
  simple
• had indited
  perfect
• was inditing
  progressive
• were inditing
  progressive
• had been inditing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will indite
  simple
• will have indited
  perfect
• will be inditing
  progressive
• will have been inditing
  perfect progressive

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

indite indites indited inditing

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

Have the goodness, Mr. Hetherington, to sit down at that small table—you will there find all things needful for writing, and indite the handbill that will be necessary for us.

From The Vicar of Wrexhill by Mrs Trollope

They are forgetting their own language, he adds, and hardly one in a thousand can write a decent Latin letter; yet they indite excellent Arabic verse.

From The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole

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 T. W. H. (Thomas William Hodgson) Crosland

The Graces hold his inkstand for him when he indites the sonnets which, with such delicate cadences, he reads in the Accademia degli Arcadi.

From The Prose Writings of Heinrich Heine by Heinrich Heine

They fortunately do not meet; but James, ordering pen and paper, sits down and indites a letter.

From The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. II by Charles James Lever

Each night he indites in type-writer and addresses to Esther Lockwin an essay on the value of hope in great afflictions.

From David Lockwin—The People's Idol by John McGovern

When Pennington for female ills indites, Studying alone not what, but how he writes, The ladies, as his graceful form they scan, Cry, with ill-omened rapture,—"Killing man!"

From The Jest Book The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings by Mark Lemon

Hear how learned Greece her useful rules indites, When to repress and when indulge our flights.

From An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope

Rushing to Washington, Congressman Linthicum indited invitations to all 71st House members to attend a Wet Bloc organization meeting early in December.

From Time Magazine Archive

He indited the script to "Emperors, Kings, Dukes, Marquises, Earls and Knights," full knowing that the house of Polo would profit by the advertisement.

From Time Magazine Archive

Soon the compromise was indited, the bargain between miners and owners sealed, the strike averted.

From Time Magazine Archive

Readers ascertained on closer scrutiny that Mr. Rogers was permitting this journal to publish a series of open epistles indited by him to Calvin Coolidge.

From Time Magazine Archive

On the night of that same day on which I indited the epistle, the Officer of the Guard chanced to be my particular friend.

From The Bandolero A Marriage among the Mountains by Mayne Reid

The earl had no sooner withdrawn than Mr. Lockerby, after collecting himself a little, commenced inditing a letter to the Countess Dowager of Wistonbury, apprising her of what had just occurred.

From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume I Historical, Traditionary, and Imaginative by Various

Two only out of the ten witnesses have gratified him by inditing, at his request, weak and guarded complaints of unfair treatment.

From Abraham Lincoln: Was He A Christian? by John B. Remsburg

I went up and very considerably surprised, not to say alarmed, young Mr. Benson, who had the photograph of a lady propped up on a desk before him and was obviously inditing an amorous epistle.

From The City in the Clouds by C. Ranger Gull

Within the last twenty-four hours of his existence a new chapter had been opened before him in his book of fate—it was not his own inditing.

From Jasper Lyle by Harriet Ward

Glancing hastily upwards, I—yes I, in the body at this present, inditing this faithful description of my chase,—saw, not a hundred paces from me, an enormous vulture!

From The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 3, October, 1851 by Various