Video

#etymology Published: 2021-12-04

The English word “video” comes from the Latin “videō”, which means “I see”. This word has so many descendants in English, so let’s take a look at the common ones. Some of them are quite different from “videō” in form, because there are many other related words such as “vīsō” (the intensive form of videō) or “vīsiō” (noun form).

improvise, provide

The word “improvise” is made up of “im-“ (meaning “not”), “pro” (meaning “in advance”, e.g., seen in “prophecy”), and videō. Hence, it means “not see in advance”, which makes perfect sense to me. The transition in meaning of the word “provide” is also understandable: “to see in the future” -> “to prepare” -> “to supply”.

evident

This is the combination of the prefix “ex-“ meaning “out”¹ and videō.

advise, revise, supervise

These words have the sense of “to look at something or someone carefully” in common.

view, visible, vision

These are directly related to “see”.

visit

This word comes from the word “vīsitō” meaning “I go to see”. The word vīsitō is the frequentative form of vīsō, and makes sense. I like the fact that the letter “t” remains in the word “visit” probably as a frequentative form, because I have seen the same pattern before in the word “palpitate”, which is considered to come from the frequentative form of “palpō”².

wise, wit, witness

These words ultimately share the origin with videō, which is the Proto-Indo-European “*weyd-“, meaning “to see”.

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