pervade

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pervādō (“to spread through, go through, cross”),^[2][3][4][5] from per- (“through”) and vādō (“to go”).^[5][4][6] The prefix goes back to Proto-Indo-European *per- (“forward, through”).^[3] Hoad, Klein and Merriam-Webster connect the Latin verb with wade.^[6][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To spread or diffuse, to be present throughout, used intransitively: 1655, in the second edition of Henry More's Antidote against Atheism.^[2][8] Barnhart cites the same work for 1653.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word came in with the physical sense of the Latin, going or passing through, as well as that of spreading: the OED records "to pass through, to traverse" from 1656, in Blount's Glossographia, and "to pass into every part of" from 1659.^[2] Johnson (1755) still defined it first as passing through an aperture, and then as passing through the whole extension of something, quoting Newton on liquids and "little pores".^[9] The sense "to cross" is now rare^[2][10] and Merriam-Webster marks it archaic.^[8] The intransitive use is also rare,^[10] and today the word chiefly means spreading through something subtly or gradually, as of an odour or a mood.^[11][8] The adjective pervasive is recorded from about 1750, in Shenstone, formed from Latin pervāsus, the past participle.^[4]

Timeline

• 1655 – intransitive, to spread, to be present throughout.^[2][8] Barnhart has 1653.^[4]
• 1656 – to go or pass through, to traverse.^[2]
• 1659 – to spread through every part of, to permeate.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spread through every part of something, often subtly or gradually; to permeate: A smell of damp pervaded the old cottage.^[11][8][2]
2. (archaic) To pass through; to traverse.^[8][2][10]
3. (rare) Used intransitively, to become diffused.^[2][10]

Word family

• pervader
• pervadingly
• pervadingness
• pervasively
• pervasiveness
• pervasive
• pervasion

Related words

• evade
• invade
• vade mecum
• vamoose
• wade

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins