Etymologically

deveho

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 19 October 2026 at 19:28. This address is a permanent link to this version.

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈdeː.we.(ɦ)oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈdɛː.ve.o][1]

Forms

dēvehō (present infinitive dēvehere, perfect active dēvē̆xī, supine dēvectum); third conjugation[1] Manuscripts sometimes spell it divehō.[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- (“down, away”) + vehō (“to carry”).[3][2][1] De Vaan traces vehō to Proto-Italic *weχ-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ-e/o- (“to carry”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first example is the prologue of Plautus' Poenulus: the man who stole the girls carried them off to Anactorium.[3]

Semantic evolution

It means to carry, convey or transport to a destination, as Caesar has boats carried on wagons twenty-two miles from his camp, and is most frequent in the historians.[3][5] It is used of transport by sea, as Livy's statues and paintings carried from Syracuse to Rome, and in the passive of sailing; of transport downstream, as Cicero's arms brought down the Tiber to a villa.[3] An old inscription allows the stakes of a temple to be carried away, and the Rhetorica ad Herennium uses it of a man sewn in a hide and carried down into a river.[3] Wiktionary adds to descend and to go away.[1]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of girls carried off to a city.[3][6]
  • 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium of a man thrown into a river.[3][6]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar of boats carried on wagons.[5][6]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of works of art shipped from Syracuse to Rome.[3][6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To carry, convey, transport to a destination.[3][5][1]
  2. To convey by sea or downstream; in the passive, to sail, travel downstream.[3][1]
  3. To carry away, remove.[3][5]
  4. To carry down; in the passive, to descend.[3][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de