Etymologically
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eversio

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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]

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