Etymologically
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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [eːˈwɛr.toː][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [eˈvɛr.to][1]

Forms

ēvertō (present infinitive ēvertere, perfect active ēvertī, supine ēversum); third conjugation[1] Plautus, Accius and Sallust have the older spelling ēvortō.[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ex- (“out”) + vertō (“to turn”).[2][3][4] De Vaan traces vertō to Proto-Italic *wert-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *wert-e/o- (“to turn”), cognate with Sanskrit वर्तते (vártate, “turns”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus calls a man ēvortēs … hominēs fundīs, familiīs, “you who turn people out of their farms and households”, and Terence has ēversās cervīcēs, “a neck thrown back”.[2]

Semantic evolution

Ēvertere is “to turn upside down” (Varro of soil turned over), “to throw back” the head, “to churn up” the sea (Virgil: Pallas ēvertit … aequora ventīs) and the soil.[2][6][1] It is “to overturn” a statue or a ship, “to throw down” a person or animal, “to fell” trees, and “to overthrow, sack” a town (the Rhetorica ad Herennium: the Roman people destroyed Fregellae).[2][1] Figuratively it is “to ruin” a person's fortunes (Cicero), “to overthrow” institutions or plans, “to refute” an argument, and with the ablative “to turn out” of one's property.[2][1]

Church Latin glosses it “to overthrow, overturn, make void, pervert, destroy”.[7] English evert comes from it in the 1530s.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: ēvortēs … hominēs fundīs.[2][8]
  • 190–159 BC – Terence: ēversās cervīcēs.[2][8]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero: fortūnās funditus ēvertere.[2][8]
  • 1530s – English evert.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To turn upside down; to throw back; to churn up.[2][6][1]
  2. To overturn, throw down; to fell.[2][1][7]
  3. To overthrow, destroy, sack (a town).[2][1][7]
  4. To ruin; to overthrow (institutions); to refute.[2][1][7]
  5. To turn out, expel (from property).[2][1]

Word family

  • ēversiō
  • ēversor
  • ēversus

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de