Note 132 — Chapter XIII · DISPLACEMENT IN ETYMOLOGICAL GROUPING.
Reading edition
A carefully compiled list of all forms in ation, past participles in ate, verbs in ate, found in Dict. Murray, sub. let. A., has given the following results:—
Forms in ation 219. Of these the first instance belongs to the fourteenth century in 11, fifteenth in 26, sixteenth in 49, seventeenth in 76, eighteenth in 23, nineteenth in 34 cases.
Among the 219, the form in ation is the only one in 89 cases, distributed over the same centuries as follows,—fourteenth, 2; fifteenth, 9; sixteenth, 10; seventeenth, 31; eighteenth, 15; nineteenth, 22.
There are 138 verbs in ate, 20 of which stand alone. Distribution: fourteenth century, 0; fifteenth, 4; sixteenth, 53 + 7; seventeenth, 53 + 13; eighteenth, 13; nineteenth, 15.
Of all cases where we find both the noun in ation and the verb in ate, the noun is older in 74 and the verb in 34 cases. It seems plain therefore that we may say that in English the verbs in ate are in very many cases formed from the nouns in ation, and that both are chiefly due to the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries.