Initialling

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of marking a document with a person's initials to signify approval or acknowledgment
2. A shorthand practice used in business and legal contexts to confirm agreement or consent
3. The act of providing a quick identification by signing one's initials, often done for verification purposes

Etymology: "Initialling" is the form of "initial" used for marking something with one's initials, and the verb it comes from takes its sense from the idea of a beginning. "Initial" entered English from Middle French, which took it from Latin "initiālis", meaning "of the beginning" or "incipient". That Latin word grew out of "initium", "a going in, entrance", built from "in" ("in") and "ire" ("to go"). So the first letter of a name is, at root, a mark of where something enters. The surprise is how literal the ancestry is. A person's initials are named for the beginning of their name, and the Latin base is simply a combination of "go" and "in", with no sense of letters or signatures at all. The meaning shifted from motion toward a start to the small written mark that opens a name.

Synonyms: signing, autographing