Language Of Confusion: -Cept, Redux, Part II

Back to doing this. Aren’t you excited?
 
There are a lot more of these words to look at, so let’s start with the last one to actually have -ceive in it. Perceive showed up in the fourteenth century, while perception showed up in the late fourteenth century—percept is also a word, if one we don’t use much, and it showed up in 1837. Perceive came to us through the Anglo French parceif and Old North French perceivre, which are from the classical Latin percipere, to perceive, and perception comes straight from the Latin perceptionem, which is the noun version of the word. As we learned last week, the -cipere part comes from capere, to grasp or take (from the Proto Indo European kap-, to grasp), and with per-, thoroughly, to perceive is to grasp thoroughly.
 
Next, contraception showed up in 1886, making it quite a recent word. Contra means against, and the -ception is actually short for conception, meaning it’s against conception. Makes sense, right? People just didn’t want to say contraconception.
 
Inception showed up in the early fifteenth century from the Old French inception and classical Latin inceptionem, to begin. Incept showed up in the mid sixteenth century from the classical Latin inceptus, beginning, and both of those words are from incipere, to begin. The in- prefix means in or on, meaning this word is… what? To take on? I guess I can see that being a beginning.
 
Finally today, intercept showed up sometime during the fifteenth century, while interception showed up in the early fifteenth century. Interception is from the classical Latin interceptionem (interception, big shocker), and intercept is from interceptus (intercept, duh), and both are from intercipere, to intercept. Inter- means between, and with capere meaning to take or seize, the word is to take between. You know, like taking something between when it’s thrown and when it’s caught. Intercepting.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
University of Texas at Arlington
Fordham University