Indict means to formally charge someone with a crime, as a grand jury does. Indite is a much rarer word meaning to write or compose something, such as a letter. The two share a common root, but only indict survives in everyday use, mainly in legal and news contexts.
The core difference
Indict means to charge someone with a crime, while indite is an old, rarely used word meaning to write or compose.
- indict — to formally charge someone with a crime: The grand jury voted to indict the former executive on fraud charges.
- indite — to write or compose something, especially a literary work: He sat down to indite a letter to his old friend.
How to tell them apart
Both words trace back to the same Middle English root, enditen, from Old French enditer. Indict later picked up its silent c to echo the Latin form indicere, even though the letter is never pronounced. Indite kept the older spelling and, over time, settled into its own narrower meaning of composing or writing something down.
Because indict is silent on the c, writers sometimes reach for indite by mistake when they actually mean charge with a crime. In practice, indite is rare enough today, mostly seen in older or literary writing, that indict is almost always the word you want in modern usage.
