indite

Indite is a verb meaning to write or compose, especially to create literary or formal text. In contemporary usage it is considered archaic or literary, and is most often found in historical writing, poetry, or discussions of older texts.

The word appears in Middle English as indite or inditen and has no widely attested modern cognates. Its exact etymology is uncertain; it has been described as an older form of the verb “to write” that fell out of common use, while some scholars note possible links to related Germanic or Latin roots connected with speaking or composing. As a result, indite is typically found in quotation, allusion, or deliberately stylistic contexts rather than everyday language.

Indite is a transitive verb and governs an object: one indites a letter, a poem, a charter, and similar items. Phrases such as “indite a ballad” or “indite a treaty” are typical of earlier periods. Example: “The bard indited a tender ode to the sea.”

Modern writers may employ indite to evoke antiquity, formality, or a particular stylistic effect, but it is rarely used in ordinary speech or prose. It is distinct from indict, a homograph with the meaning to charge someone with a crime, though the two terms resemble each other in spelling and share a distant Latin root meaning to speak or say.