What does et mean?
Et is the Latin word for 'and', a two-letter fragment of classical grammar that survives in modern English only through a handful of scholarly and legal borrowings. It appears in et cetera ('and the rest'), et alii or et al. ('and others', standard in academic citations), and et sequens ('and the following', used in legal references). On its own, et is not part of everyday English vocabulary; writers should confine it to these established phrases rather than using it as a substitute for 'and'. Separately, in some regional varieties of British English — particularly across Northern England and Scotland — et serves as an informal past tense of the verb 'eat', as in 'I et my breakfast'. This usage is widely recognized but considered nonstandard in formal contexts, where 'ate' remains the correct form. The persistence of both senses makes et a small but genuinely interesting piece of linguistic history.
(Latin) And; used in English only within fixed borrowed phrases such as et cetera and et al.
"The survey covered demographics, income, education, et cetera."
Confine to established Latin abbreviations; do not use as a general replacement for 'and' in English text.
(informal, chiefly British dialectal) Past tense and past participle of 'eat'.
"She'd et nothing since morning, so she ate heartily at supper."
Nonstandard; avoid in formal writing.
Every time you write 'etc.', you're using a 2,000-year-old Latin word for 'and' — one of Rome's smallest exports that English never gave back.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of et
Et comes directly from Latin, where it was the ordinary conjunction meaning 'and', descended from Proto-Indo-European *h₁etí. English absorbed it wholesale within medieval scholarly Latin phrases such as et cetera and et alii, which entered written usage during the Renaissance period of heavy Latin borrowing and remain standard today. The unrelated-sounding dialectal past tense 'et' for 'eat' arose through regular northern English vowel shortening rather than from the Latin word.
How et is actually used
As a standalone word, 'et' is not used in modern English prose; it appears almost exclusively inside fixed Latin phrases, where it is typically set in roman type and often italicized or abbreviated (etc., et al.). The dialectal use as a past tense of 'eat' is regional and informal, and is considered nonstandard in formal writing.
Easily confused with et
'Et' is an informal dialectal past tense of 'eat' in parts of Britain, while 'ate' is the standard past tense.
'E.g.' means 'for example' from Latin exempli gratia, whereas 'et' means 'and'.