Lexifour weekly · September 4, 2026
A public selection from this edition’s word-story sources. Subscribers’ personal activity summaries and word lists are not published.
It entered English in the 1590s from Latin devius, meaning off the road or out of the way. Latin de via points away from the road.
At first, devious described a route. By the 1630s, English speakers were also using it for a person whose methods wandered from the honest path.
Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary: devious
Old English forsacan could mean object to, refuse, deny, give up, or renounce. Its parts carried the sense of complete opposition or dispute.
The modern word is stronger than leave. We usually forsake something that duty, loyalty, or affection might have kept us beside.
Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary: forsake
Middle English bithinken and Old English bethencan meant to consider, remember, reflect, or take thought for something.
Its past tense is bethought. The word survives as a compact way to suggest deliberate thought, even though plain think now does most of its old work.
Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary: bethink
Before eavesdrop was a verb, the eavesdrop was the water dripping from a roof's eaves, and then the strip of ground where it landed. An eavesdropper was literally someone standing close enough to a house to get dripped on.
The architecture disappeared from view, but the suspicious listener remained. Modern eavesdropping can happen through a wall or a phone, safely out of the rain.
Sources: Merriam-Webster: Eavesdrop