Language Of Confusion: Verse, Part IV

Back to the words that come from the Proto Indo European wer-, to turn or bend. This week, more -vert/-verse words, some vert- words, and a bonus not vert word. Yay?
 
First, reverse and revert. Both showed up in the fourteenth century, with reverse coming from the Old French revers and revert (originally meaning to recover from illness) from the Anglo French reverter and Old French revertir. That can be traced to the Vulgar Latin revertire, from the classical Latin revertere, to return, while revers is from the Latin reversus, also from revertere. Vertere, as I’ve mentioned the previous weeks, means to turn, as it is from wer-. With the re- prefix meaning back, it’s to turn back. Fairly sensible.
 
Subvert of course has a very similar story. It showed up in the late fourteenth century meaning to raze, destroy, or overturn. It’s from the Old French subverir and classical Latin subvertere, to subvert or overturn. Sub- means under, so subverting is turning under something, apparently. And there’s really not much different with perverse and pervert either. Both showed up in the late fourteenth century, from the Old French pervers and pervertir, from the classical Latin verb pervertere, to pervert or corrupt. The per- is from the preposition per and means away here. Perverting something is turning it away.
 
Now it’s finally time for something different. Vertebra—as in your spine. It showed up in the early fifteenth century (vertebrate not until 1826), and it’s thought to be from vertere as well, with the idea that the spine is the “hinge” of the body. Plus there’s vertigo, which also showed up in the early fifteenth century, literally meaning “I am dizzy” in Latin. The verb is from vertere, because when you’re dizzy, you feel like you’re turning.

 
Finally today, reverberate showed up in the late sixteenth century, meaning to beat or drive back, then shortly after began to be used in relation to sound or noise. Reverberation showed up earlier, in the late fourteenth century, and originally it meant a flash of light or repercussion of air, not meaning an echo until the mid seventeenth century. It’s from the Old French reverberacion, Medieval Latin reverberationem, and the classical Latin verb reverberare, to reverberate, which is also where just plain reverberate comes from. The re- is the easy part, it just means back. Verberare means to beat or strike, related to verbena, a beating, and that is from wer- as well. So because sound turns back in an echo, we have reverberation.
 
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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Fordham University

Language of Confusion: -Rated R, Part II

Part two of the hit trilogy.

Shut up. It might be.

First up today: reverberate. It showed up in the late sixteenth century meaning to force back for a couple of decades before it switched to echo. Although before there was reverberate it was reverberen—really. Then there’s reverberation, which showed up way earlier, in the late fourteenth century, meaning a reflection of light or heat. Reverberation came from the Old French reverberacion, intense or a flash of light, and before that, the Medieval Latin reverberationem and classical Latin reverberare, reverberate or bounce back. The re- is where the back comes from and verberare means barrage or beat. Verber, the noun that comes from, means whip or lash, and it’s related to verbena, which is laurel branches (I could not make this up) and because those are bendy and good for whipping, we have bounce back, and thus, reverberate. Sure, why not?

Next is incarcerate. It showed up in the mid sixteenth century, either coming from the Medieval Latin incarcerates/incarcerare or just straight from incarceration, which showed up in the early sixteenth century. That incarcerare literally means imprison, with the in- obviously meaning in and carcer meaning prison. So incarcerate always just meant incarcerate. I guess language is very steady when it comes to imprisonment.

Penetrate showed up in the early sixteenth century from the classical Latin penetrates/penetrare, put or enter into, and despite what you dirty minded people might be thinking, it has nothing to do with a certain part of the male anatomy.

Finally, concentrate showed up in the mid seventeenth century as a verb (it wasn’t a noun until the late nineteenth century, believe it or not), about at the same time as concentration did. Like reverberate, there was another version of the word in use, concenter, which came from the Italian concentrare—really! Italian! Not French! It’s a mix of the classical Latin com-, together, and centrum, center. Which is also the origin word of center (Gasp!).

Welp, that’s it for this week. Actually pretty interesting. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

Dictionary of Medieval Latin