Did You Know?
At one time if something was "inordinate," it did not conform to the expected or desired order of things. That sense, synonymous with "disorderly" or "unregulated," is now archaic, but it offers a hint at the origins of "inordinate." The word traces back to the Latin verb "ordinare," meaning "to arrange," combined with the negative prefix "in-." "Ordinare" is also the ancestor of such English words as "coordination," "subordinate," "ordination," and "ordain." "Ordinare" did not give us "order," "orderly," or "disorderly," but the root of those words is the same Latin noun ("ordo") from which "ordinare" itself derives.
