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conversation[conversation 词源字典]

conversation: [14] Latin convertere meant ‘turn round, transform’. It was a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and vertere ‘turn’ (source of English verse, version, and vertigo). It has spawned a variety of English words, its most direct descendant being convert [13]. Its past participle conversus produced the noun converse ‘opposite’ [16], but this should not be confused with the verb converse ‘talk’ [14], which came via quite a different route.

Latin vertere had a specialized form, vertāre, denoting repeated action. From it came versārī ‘live, occupy oneself’, which, with the addition of the com- prefix, produced conversārī ‘live, dwell, associate or communicate with others’. This passed via Old French converser into English, but at first both it and its derivative conversation were limited semantically to the notion of ‘dwelling’ and ‘social life’; the specific modern sense ‘talk’ was not brought into play until the late 16th century.
=> convert, verse, version[conversation etymology, conversation origin, 英语词源]