Etymology
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inconvenience (n.)

c. 1400, "harm, damage; danger; misfortune, affliction," from Old French inconvenience "misfortune, calamity; impropriety" (Modern French inconvenance), from Late Latin inconvenientia "lack of consistency, incongruity" (in Medieval Latin "misfortune, affliction"), abstract noun from inconvenientem (see inconvenient). Sense of "impropriety, unfitness; an improper act or utterance" in English is from early 15c. Meaning "quality of being inconvenient" is from 1650s.

inconvenience (v.)

"to give trouble, impede, or hamper" (someone), 1650s, from inconvenience (n.). Related: Inconvenienced; inconveniencing.

The early Spanish missionaries in America were inconvenienced by finding that the only native word they could use for God also meant devil. [Herbert Spencer, "The Principles of Sociology," 1877]

updated on July 30, 2021

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