evado

Forms

ēvādō (present infinitive ēvādere, perfect active ēvāsī, supine ēvāsum); third conjugation^[1] Horace and Silius have the contracted perfect ēvāstī.^[2][3] Trebellius Pollio has a perfect ēvādī.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ex- (“out”) + vādō (“to go”).^[2][1][4] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of ⟨vādō⟩, which he traces to Proto-Italic *wāþe/o- and Proto-Indo-European *ueh₂dʰ- (“to advance”), the root of vadum (“ford”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Rudens: salvast, ēvāsit ex aquā, “she's safe, she has got out of the water”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Ēvādō is to go or come out (Cicero), to go up, climb (Virgil: she had climbed the high steps), and to pass through or beyond (Sallust of Numidian horses passing easily through brushwood).^[2] Above all it is to get clear, escape, from a place or from danger and illness (Cicero: a sick man recovering), and transitively to escape past or from something.^[2][1] It also means to exceed, and to live beyond a time: Augustus, quoted by Gellius, writes that he has passed his sixty-third year.^[2] From going out it came to mean arriving at a result, turning out or ending (Plautus: I wonder where the fable will end up), with a predicate “to turn out to be, become” (Lucilius), and to come true (Cicero of dreams).^[2][1]

Church Latin glosses it “evade, escape”.^[6] English evade (1510s) came from French évader.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of escaping from the water and of a story's outcome.^[2][7]
• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius in the sense “to turn out to be”.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of recovering from illness and of dreams coming true.^[2][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of climbing steps.^[2][7]
• 1510s – English evade, through French.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go out, come out; to be emitted.^[2][1]
2. To go up, climb.^[2][1]
3. To pass through or beyond.^[2][1]
4. To escape, get away (from); to evade.^[2][1][6]
5. To exceed; to live beyond, survive.^[2]
6. To end up, turn out, result; to become; to come true.^[2][1]

Related words

• vādō
• invādō
• English evade

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de