revenue

English picked up 'revenue' in 1433 meaning income from property or possessions, borrowed from Middle French revenue, itself from an Old French term meaning 'a return.' That French word is the feminine past participle of revenir ('to come back'), from Latin re- ('back') plus venire ('to come').

The word entered English already narrowed to a financial sense — income from property — rather than the broader 'a return' it carried in Old French.

It shares its Latin root venire ('to come') with revenir, the French verb for 'to come back,' from which 'revenue' descends as a feminine past participle turned noun.