egress/ingress

[Victor Steinbok]

A pair of old words (15th century or earlier). A somewhat fancy way of
saying "enter" and "exit", especially in the context of transportation.

This is sort of the basics... I had always heard it in the context of
"egress the vehicle" [v]--whatever the vehicle might be--or [point of]
ingress and egress a highway [n]. The definitions vary somewhat between
OED, MWOL(11) and AHD(4). Two points [I found interesting] from the OED
ingress v.: 1) the verb is listed as "now US" (no such comments under
noun); 2) the second verb definition essentially lists it as an
expression for entering sexual relations (but expressed somewhat
differently):

    +2. trans. To enter, invade; spec. 'to go in to' carnally. Obs.
    a1631    J. Donne To C'tess Bedford on New-yeares Day in Poems
    (1633) 89   Yet he as hee bounds seas, will fixe your houres,
    [Which] pleasure, and delight may not ingresse.
    a1631    J. Donne Progr. Soule xxi, in Poems (1633) 11   Men, till
    they tooke laws which made freedome lesse, Their daughters, and
    their sisters did ingresse, Till now unlawfull, therefore ill.

What brought this minor inquiry on was a comment from a [proudly]
Bostonian airline "hostess" telling the passengers on a JetBlue flight
how to best "ingress and egress [your] seat".

MWOL and AHD don't list the verb at all (at least, the online editions).
AHD adds "ingression" for "A going in or entering". Macmillan (online)
also lists noun only and adds "very formal". In fact, of all the on-line
dictionaries, only Webster's 1913 (and those citing it) had a definition
for the verb, aside from the OED. In contrast /every/ dictionary had a
definition for both noun and verb "egress". This is a somewhat odd
asymmetry, but it does reflect my experience as I hear "egress" much
more frequently than "ingress".

The particular usage with respect to the seat did give me a raised
eyebrow, as I would have expected the verb or the noun to be more
applicable to the row, the "door", the airport--anything that has an
entrance and an exit. But seats don't really have an entrance and an
exit point. So, in my amateur estimate, it's the frequent usage in other
transportation contexts that prompted this woman to apply
"ingress/egress" to assigned seats as well. YMMV

     VS-)

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