obvio

Forms

obviō (present infinitive obviāre, perfect active obviāvī, supine obviātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin obvius (“in the way, meeting”), turned into a verb with the first-conjugation ending.^[2][3] The adjective is formed from ob (“towards, against”) and via (“way, road”).^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is a post-classical verb.^[6] The Old Latin Bible already uses it for going to meet someone,^[7] and Jerome has it in that sense in his letters.^[6][8]

Semantic evolution

From going to meet someone, it came to mean going against someone, opposing or resisting, as in Macrobius and the jurists of the Digest.^[6][8][7] Palladius uses it, with the dative, for heading off a harm before it strikes: to guard against hail or against worms.^[6][8] The Vulgate has the reflexive sense of things meeting each other.^[6]

In Ecclesiastical Latin it kept the sense of going forth to meet.^[9] The Romance languages borrowed it as a learned word: French obvier, Italian ovviare, Portuguese obviar.^[1] English took the past participle as the source of obviate in the 1590s.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 383–420 AD – Jerome uses it for meeting someone in his letters.^[6][8][10]
• end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century AD – Palladius uses it for preventing a harm, such as hail.^[6][8][10]
• first half of the 5th century AD – Macrobius uses it for resisting someone.^[6][8][10]
• 533 AD – The Digest uses it for acting against something.^[6][10]
• 1590s – English forms obviate from its past participle.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, with dative) To go to meet, to meet.^[6][8][9]
2. (intransitive, with dative) To act contrary to, oppose, resist.^[2][6][8]
3. (intransitive, with dative) To prevent, guard against, obviate.^[6][8][7]
4. (transitive, rare) To meet someone.^[7]

Related words

• obviam
• English obviate

Usage notes

The TLL records a deponent form obvior in the Old Latin Bible, in the sense of opposing.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. ^ 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
10. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de