revert

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English reverten,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French revertir (“to return, change back”), with the Anglo-Norman variant reverter,^[6][2][3][7] and in part directly borrowed from Latin revertō (“to turn back, return”).^[6][8][9] The French verb comes from Vulgar Latin *revertiō, a variant of the Latin,^{[3][7][2][10]} which is formed from re- (“back”) and vertō (“to turn”),^[2][7][3] from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[2][7] In Anglo-Norman the verb is recorded from the first half of the 12th century, already meaning to go back, to regain consciousness and, of a right, to revert;^[11] the OED notes that the French verb fell out of standard French after the early 17th century.^[6] It is related to reverse, convert and version.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of an estate, to return to the original owner or his heirs after a grant ends: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm.^[6] Etymonline and Barnhart put first the now obsolete senses "to regain consciousness, recover", from about 1300 and probably before 1300.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The early senses were bodily: to come to oneself again (from about 1330, in Kyng Alisaunder, to 1768, later chiefly Scottish),^[6][9] to recover, and of a plant to spring up again (about 1457–1599).^[6][9] Wright's dialect dictionary still records the verb in northern Scotland for recovering from a swoon or illness.^[12] The general sense "to return to a former state" dates from the mid-15th century,^[2][3] and the return to a former custom or idea from 1612, in Bacon's Essays.^[3][2] Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) gave the biological sense of going back to an ancestral type, as in revert to type.^[3][2][9] The noun was first a musical term (1597, Morley), which Johnson defined as "return; recurrence";^[6][13] after convert, it came to mean a person who returns to a former religion (1653, in Fuller).^[6][9] In American business usage Collins records revert to for replying to someone.^[14]

Timeline

• before 1325 – in law, of an estate, to return to the original owner.^[6]
• c. 1330 – to regain consciousness (obsolete after 1768).^[6]
• c. 1450 – to return to a former condition.^[3][2]
• 1597 – noun, in music, a phrase repeated with its notes reversed.^[6]
• 1606 – of a disease, to recur.^[6]
• 1612 – to go back to a former custom, practice or idea.^[3][2]
• 1653 – noun, a person who returns to a former religion.^[6]
• 1859 – in biology, to return to an ancestral type.^[3][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go back to a former condition, practice or belief: After the holidays the office reverted to its usual routine.^[14][4][9]
2. To return to a subject of talk or thought: He kept reverting to his childhood.^[14][9]
3. In biology, to return to an earlier or ancestral type, as in revert to type.^[14][4][9]
4. In law, of property, to return to the former owner or the owner's heirs when a grant ends.^[14][4][6]
5. (US) To reply to someone.^[14]
6. To come or go back to a place; now rare.^[6][9]
7. (obsolete, 1330–1768) To regain consciousness.^[6][9]

Noun

1. A person who returns to a former faith.^[4][6][9]
2. In music, a phrase that repeats the notes of the previous one in reverse order; now rare.^[6][9]

Word family

• reverter
• revertible
• revertive
• revertibility
• revertively
• reversion

Related words

• reverse
• convert
• version
• vertex

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins