interject

Interject is built from Latin parts that English can still take apart: inter, "between," plus a combining form of iacere, "to throw." To interject is literally to throw something in between. The prefix inter- is one of the standard Latin prepositions doing duty in English, alongside pre-, post-, sub-, trans- and ex-, and its presence is a fair sign that a word came from Latin rather than through the slow wear of French.

The word appeared in English in the 1570s, either as a back-formation from the older interjection or straight from the Latin past participle interiectus. Back-formation is worth noticing as a process: English often borrows the long noun first, then carves a verb out of it that Latin never had in that shape. Interrogate came into the language the same way, and so did many other -ate and -ject verbs.

interject
(v.)
"insert, interpolate, throw between other things," 1570s, back-formation from
interjection
or else from Latin
interiectus
, past participle of
intericere
"to throw between, set between," from
inter
"between" (see
inter-
) +
-icere
, combining form of
iacere
"to throw" (reconstructed to be from PIE root
*ye-
"to throw, impel"). Also intransitive. Related:
Interjected
;
interjecting
.
also from 1570s

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