Abstract concepts

The thirty-third entry is inerente, and the word itself gives no trouble at all; the trap is the little word after it. Portuguese says inerente a, always: é um risco inerente a este tipo de trabalho, as dificuldades inerentes ao cargo, uma falha inerente ao sistema. The preposition never changes and it is never dropped. The English adjective looks so close that the hand writes « inherent to », and that form does occur — but it is not the one the language settled on. The ordinary phrase is « inherent in »: a risk inherent in this kind of work, the difficulties inherent in the post, a flaw inherent in the system. The reason shows once the word is taken apart. It comes from Latin inhaerere, to stick fast in something, which is in plus haerere, to cling — the same haerere that gave « adhere » and « cohere ». So the preposition English asks for is the prefix said a second time, once inside the word and once out in the open. Read inerente as sticking in rather than as belonging to, and the right English preposition arrives by itself.