English
verve
Verve comes from French verve ‘animation’.
- Frenchc. 1600–presentverve‘animation’
- Englishearliest quotation 1697verve
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Frenchc. 1600–presentverve‘animation’
- Englishearliest quotation 1697verve
Earliest quotation: 1697, John Dryden, To the Most Honourable John, Lord Marquess of Normanby, […]: “If he be above Virgil, and is reſolv'd to…”
The story
Borrowed from French verve (‘animation; caprice, whim; rapture; spirit; vigour; type of expression’), probably from Late Latin verva, a variant of Latin verba (‘words; discourse; expressions; language’), the plural of verbum (‘word’), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *werh₁- (‘to say, speak’).
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *werh₁- ‘to say, speak’
word, rhetoric, verbatim, adverb, verbose, 18 more
through Latin verbum ‘word’
Today it means
noun Enthusiasm, rapture, spirit, or vigour, especially of imagination such as that which animates an artist, musician, or writer, in composing or performing.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / French verve / verve