intercept
/ˌɪntərˈsɛpt/verb, noun
Catch, seize, or stop while in transit
From Latin inter (between).
Lineage
inter
-cipere
The story
Picture a Roman official reaching into the path of a passing messenger and taking the message before it arrives: that is the vivid action behind Latin intercipere, “to seize between.” English borrowed its past-participle form, interceptus, around c. 1400 as intercepten, initially meaning “to cut off” or prevent something from spreading. By the 1540s, the word had moved neatly from physical obstruction to interrupted movement—of a messenger, a beam of light, or a football. Its second root, capere, “to take,” is a remarkably productive Latin survivor: capture, accept, receive, perceive, and participate all carry traces of the same grasping hand. So when a defender intercepts a pass, the word is acting out its ancient grammar: something is taken in between its source and its destination.
Modern usage
To secretly take and destroy someone’s school report before their parents see it
- Popularized by
- Urban Dictionary
- Heard in
- informal speech · online slang
- See
- Urban Dictionary entry describing taking a school report from a mailbox
Words from the same roots
inter · Latin, ‘between, among’
Derivedintervene, interpose, intermediate, interstitial