When the term enchant was first used in 1374, it had a figurative meaning of “influence” or “delude”. The literal meaning of “put under a spell” actually came about three years later; I find the order of these developments quite interesting. The word originates from Old French enchanter, which is derived from Latin incantare, with a similar definition. Breaking it down, the prefix in- in this context means “upon”, while the root cantare means “to sing”. The concept behind this was that certain songs could be so captivating that they enchant or charm you. In- can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction hen, meaning “in”, and as for cantare, I have previously discussed its origins: it comes from Proto-Italic kano, ultimately stemming from PIE kehn, meaning “to sing”. Additionally, incantare is also the source of the English word incantation, through Old French incantacion, which denoted “spell” or “exorcism”.
