We’re back to looking at words
related verse, which is from the
Proto Indo European wer-,
to turn or bend.
This week, words with -vert in in them, which I have also done before, and now
I’m doing it again along with some -verse words they’re related to.
Avert showed up in the
mid fifteenth century, around the same time as
averse, actually. Why is it vert
instead of verse? Well, first of all, it comes from the
Old French avertir (slightly
different from averse’s origin), and that’s from the
Vulgar Latin advertire.
That’s from the
classical Latin avertere,
to turn away, the origin for averse,
with the a- from ab-,
off or away from,
and the vertere meaning
to turn.
Those words at least kind of
seem related—avert is turning away, and averse is a more metaphorical turning
away from something you’re against. But what about converse and convert?
Convert showed up in the
fourteenth century,
specifically related to religious conversion. It’s from the Old French
convertir,
from the Vulgar Latin
convertire, and classical Latin
convertere,
which is just
to convert.
And yes, converse can be traced back to that too, it’s just a longer journey.
The con- prefix means
with or together,
and with vertere, converting is turning together. Uh, I guess. And that’s also
a conversation?
Divert also seems weird when
compared to diverse. It showed up in the
early fifteenth century, from the Old French
divertir and classical Latin
divertere, just
divert.
Diverse is actually older, having shown up in the
late fourteenth century—and
in actuality, it’s older than that, as it used to be spelled
divers in
the
late thirteenth century. It’s from
the classical Latin
diversus,
different,
which is also from divertere, with the prefix from dis-, meaning aside, so
diverting is turning aside. Apparently the diverse means being turned all
different ways—having a lot of differences.
Invert is relatively recent,
having shown up in the
sixteenth century,
with inverse only being slightly older, from the
mid fifteenth century.
Invert is from the Old French
invertir and classical Latin
invertere,
invert,
while inverse is from
inversus,
upside down, the past participle of
invertere.
The in- here is from en and just means
in,
so to invert is to turn in, which I guess makes sense for inverting something.
Finally today, two -vert words
that are obviously paired. Introvert showed up in the
mid seventeenth century while extrovert was used off and on but not firmly in the lexicon until
1916 (and at first was spelled with an A instead of an O). Intro- means
inward or inside, while the extro- is from
extra- and means outside. Introverts
turn inside, extroverts turn outside. And psychologists used the words to describe people, so that’s
why we have them.
Sources
Online
Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Encyclopaedia
Britannica