“Habitat”: a natural, and etymological, history

This past week, the US laid to rest its 39th president, Jimmy Carter, who died at age 100 at the end of 2024 following his restless humanitarianism in his post-presidency.

Prominent among his efforts was his work for Habitat for Humanity,  which spanned more than 35 years and 4,400 homes. 

The housing nonprofit, also based in Carter’s home state of Georgia, is called Habitat for short—and it’s to this construction of this word, habitat, I turn today.

The etymology of habitat

Now, I knew that habitat is ultimately built from habēre, an all-purpose tool of a Latin verb meaning “to have, hold, possess, own, keep,” among many other senses. 

That’s why—in another error of presumption—I never looked into its etymological blueprints any further.

And so I was delighted to discover that habitat is not just from a Latin verb. It is itself a Latin verb. Habitat literally means “it inhabits.”

👉 Last September, I discussed another Latin verb hiding in plain sight in interest. If you’re interested in more examples, like exit and video, read this ol’ article I did for Mental Floss.

Historically, naturalists began entries in catalogs of plants and animals—works known as floras and faunas and usually composed in Latin, long the lingua franca of Western learning—with the word habitat to note their native geography.

Habitat in India. “It lives in India.” 

So registered one of the most influential naturalists of all, Carl Linnaeus, of Jasminum officinale, or common jasmine, in Species Plantarum—Species of Plants, his monumental 1753 treatise that not only documented 6,000 plants but also marked the first systematic application of binomial nomenclature, the two-name taxonomy which he famously formalized. 

👉 We’ve encountered Linnaeus’s imprint before on Mashed Radish, including in scientific names for the orca, lemur, and turkey—as well as in the male and female symbols.

This proto-geotag of habitat, which we might more idiomatically translate as “Found in India,” follows a brief description of Jasminum officinale: 

• Jasminum foliis oppositis pinnatis. Jasmine with opposite pinnate leaves.
• Jasminum vulgatius flore albo. The more common jasmine with white flowers.

Throughout Species of Plants we find, like biological labels of country of origin, Habitat in Europa, Mexico, China, Jamaica, Virginia, Æfrica, and many more. 

And for many of these habitats—as the conventional Latin verb became so adopted as an English noun by the end of the 1700s—Linnaeus offers more vivid vignettes.

Here is a sample plucked just from the genus Veronica. I’ll jump straight to translations following the binomial names. 

• Veronica maritima. It lives in the dry, sunny seacoasts of Europe.
• Veronica officinalis. It lives in the barren forests of Europe.
• Veronica serpyllifolia. It lives in Europe and North America along roads and fields.

Poetical, right?

Fun with frequentatives

Grammatically, habitat is the third-person singular present form of habitāre (“to live in, inhabit, dwell, reside”): “he/she/it lives.” And for its part, habitāre is a frequentative form of habēre, “to have.”   

A so-called frequentative verb expresses repeated—frequent—action. A literal sense of habitāre, then, is “having again and again.” We can see, if we squint, how this became “dwell.”

English has frequentatives, too.

• To sparkle is to spark recurrently.
• To crackle is to make small cracking noises continuously.
• To sniffle is to sniff slightly and repeatedly.

Detect a pattern?

The element -le was once a productive suffix added to verbs to convey frequentative action—also often with a diminutive quality. Many instances of this suffix survive today, though a lot of the verbs have since developed senses independent of the original verbs they were formed from long ago. 

Many instances also reveal surprisingly familiar root verbs, once you unhook the -le suffix. Here are a few of my favorites—and they all deserve exclamation points. Yeah, word facts make me shout, y’all.

Dazzle is based on daze! Straddle is based on stride. Waddle? Wade! Wrestle? Wrest! Jostle is based on joust! (Here, I imagine troops of tiny cavalry brandishing toothpicks all helter-skelter.)

And Wordle is based on … Wardle, a pun on its creator’s surname, but which game name no doubt has a frequentative flavor to it.

The suffix -le is not alone. Another element that once formed frequentatives is -er. Blabber, clamber, flicker, patter, and slumber are some examples.

Once you learn the English frequentative, you will recognize it everywhere. Be careful, however. The suffixes -le and –er do many other jobs in English. Plus, some verbs with frequentative character may not have been directly formed using the suffixes. That is especially true of verbs with –er, which may have imitative origins.

👉 Need more yet more frequentatives? I got you well covered. Also years back for Mental Floss, I rounded up two dozen of ‘em, and the topic isn’t infrequent in my own archives—including the gruntle behind disgruntled!

Creatures of habit

Once you learn the Latin verb habēre, you will recognize its derivatives everywhere. Here are some of the biggies:

• cohabit
• habitation
• habit
• habitable
• habitual
• inhabit

If you are really observant lexical naturalist, you may also spot inhibit, exhibit, and prohibit. (Habēre’s initial vowel tucks in with prefixing.)

And then, most interesting, are the etymological habitats of habēre where you would not think to find  this verbal species:

• Able is from habilis, “handy, easy to handle, a verbal adjective derived from habēre. (The suffix –able is etymologically unrelated but definitely influenced by able.)
• Debit and debt are ultimately from dēbēre, “to owe,” which combines the prefix dē– (“away from,” indicating removal or deprivation) and habēre—and so literally“not having.”
• Also from dēbēre are due and duty (think obligation)—as is endeavor, via a French expression meaning “to make it one’s duty.”
• And then there’s malady—ultimately from male habitus, “doing poorly, afflicted, ill-conditioned.”

One word that is not related to habēre? Have.

The English have and Latin habēre look alike and mean alike, and the sounds represented by b and v are a mere lip move away. 

But the English cognate (word cousin) to habēre is give. The Latin cognate to have is capere, “to seize,” source of capture.

Initially inspired by a word connected to the legacy of Jimmy Carter, I think I’ve captured quite enough in one post. But isn’t that the habitat of so many word origins? They can cover so much terrain.

Or is it just a habit of writing—that propensity to tie everything up?