repair

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 5, 2015 is: repair • \rih-PAIR\  • verb 1 : to betake oneself : go 2 : to come together : rally Examples: "… so we repaired to a publick-house, took a friendly glass, and thus parted." — Peter Drake, Amiable Renegade: The Memoirs of Captain Peter Drake, 1671–1753, 1960 "… Warren repaired to the dining alcove off the kitchen … and ate dinner with Nina and the children, discussing their schoolwork and events of the day." — Kevin Starr, Embattled Dreams, 2002 Did you know? We are all familiar with the verb repair used as a synonym of fix. But today's word, while it is a homograph and a homophone of the more familiar repair, is a slightly older and unrelated verb. Repair, the synonym of fix, comes via Anglo-French from the Latin reparare, a combination of the re- prefix and parare ("prepare"). Repair, the synonym of go (which in English also once meant "to return"), has Anglo-French and Latin roots too, but makes its way back to the Late Latin repatriare (which means "to go home again" and is a source of the English repatriate). Repatriare combines the re- prefix with patria, the Latin word for "native country." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.