Word Origin Summary

Lettre patente is attested in Anglo-Norman. Follow the ancestry chain below to trace where this term came from and how it branched into later descendants.

Descendants and Related Terms

• letters patent

  English · derived from

• patent

  Middle English · derived from

• patent

  Norwegian Bokmål · derived from

• patent

  Norwegian Nynorsk · derived from

• lettres patentes

  Middle English · borrowed from

• patent

  English · inherited from

What You Can Explore

• 🗺️Geographic migration map — see where this word traveled
• 🌳Language family tree — trace connections across related languages
• 📅Historical timeline — when the word entered different languages
• 🔤Cognates — related words in other languages sharing the same root