confer

Confer comes from Early Modern English conferre, borrowed from Middle French conférer and Old French conferer, from Latin cōnferō.

The path runs from Latin through Old French and Middle French before settling into Early Modern English as 'conferre,' arriving at the modern spelling 'confer.'

Confer is a doublet of collate, meaning the two words descend from the same Latin root but reached English by different routes. It's also grouped with infer, relate, refer, delate, defer, prelate, and prefer as words built on the same underlying pattern.