eversio

Forms

ēversiō f (genitive ēversiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ēvertō (“to overturn, destroy”) + -tiō.^[2][3][4] That verb is ē- added to vertō (“to turn”), which Wiktionary traces to Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Cicero,^[3] who in the first Philippic has the overturning of an accursed column,^[2][5] and in the speech on the soothsayers' reply the burning and destruction brought on his house and lands.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The TLL notes that it is used from Cicero and the younger Seneca onwards but is missing altogether in the poets, since it does not fit their metre.^[3] It is an overturning, as Pliny the Elder has of the upsetting of carriages,^[5] and above all a destructive overthrow, of temples in Quintilian and of a city in Florus.^[5] Florus also uses it of the eviction of those holding land.^[2] Stelten gives “overthrow, destruction, disruption, subverting”.^[6] In Christian and Medieval Latin it is moral disorder, apostasy, schism or heresy, and the refutation of an argument.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of overturning a column and of destruction.^[2][3][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of overturned carriages.^[5][4]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian, of the destruction of temples.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. An overturning, upsetting.^[2][5][1]
2. An expulsion, turning out.^[2][1]
3. Destruction, overthrow, subversion.^[2][5][1][6]
4. (Ecclesiastical and Medieval Latin) Moral disorder; apostasy, schism, heresy; refutation.^[7]

Related words

• ēvertō
• vertō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill