What’s the Difference between Among and Amongst?

Question

People tend to be hesitant when using the words Among and Amongst. Even though the meaning is the same, they have a different usage respectively. The word Among is the older form and it's frequently used in American English, whereas the word Amongst is a younger form and is commonly used in British English. The two terms are English propositions.

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AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Coko TasevskiThe two terms are English propositions.

Actually these words are prepositions.

Coko Tasevski I found everything I needed

Well, maybe that is all that is necessary, but there is much more background and related patterns to be discovered. The strangeness of some words and their puzzling usage is found in history.

Actually, "amongst" is an inflected form. It survives from when English was highly inflected. (The -s ending is called the adverbial genitive case inflection. And the -t was added later, probably because of pronunciation patterns.)

among (prep.)
"in, in the midst of," early 12c., from Old English onmang, in late Old English sometimes amang, a contraction of ongemang "among, during," from phrase on gemang, literally "in the crowd or company of" The collective prefix ge- was dropped 12c. leaving onmong, amang, among. Compare Old Saxon angimang "among, amid;" Old Frisian mong "among."

amongst (prep., adv.)
"among," mid-13c., amonges, from among with adverbial genitive -s. The unetymological -t first attested 16c.

Related pattern:

amid / amidst (prep.)
a variant of amid (q.v.) with adverbial genitive -s and unetymological -t. Amidde became amyddes (13c.) and acquired the -t from mid-15c., probably by association with superlatives in -st; the pattern also yielded amongst, against, betwixt, whilst, also archaic alongst (13c.-17c.).

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverbial_genitive:

In Old and Middle English, the genitive case was productive, and adverbial genitives were commonplace. While Modern English does not fully retain the genitive case, it has left various relics, including a number of adverbial genitives. Some of them are now analyzed as ordinary adverbs, including the following:

always (from all way)
afterwards, towards, and so on (from their counterparts in -ward, which historically were adjectives)
once, twice, and thrice (from the roots of one, two, and three)
hence, thence, and whence (related to the roots of here, there, and where)

Some words were formed from the adverbial genitive along with an additional parasitic -t:

amidst (from amid)
amongst (from among)
midst (from mid)
whilst (from while)

You will see the differences in American versus British English in the usage of the related words. For example, Americans exclusively use "while" compared to the Brits "whilst".

There are more words that have a similar history:

against (prep.)
12c., agenes "in opposition to, adverse, hostile; in an opposite direction or position, in contact with, in front of, so as to meet," originally a southern variant of agan (prep.) "again" with adverbial genitive. The unetymological -t turned up mid-14c. and was standard by early 16c., perhaps from influence of superlatives (see amidst). Use as a conjunction, "against the time that," hence "before," is now archaic or obsolete.

What’s the Difference between Among and Amongst?

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