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valve

valv · noun

LatinMiddle EnglishEnglish

Origin

Valve comes from Middle English valve, borrowed from Latin valva, meaning "double door" or "leaf of a door."

Journey

The facts don't give a detailed shift in meaning beyond the borrowing itself, so the honest story is simply that the word passed from Latin into Middle English carrying its "door" sense along with it.

Related words

Valve is a doublet of valva, meaning they both descend from the same Latin word but entered English through different paths.

More words

From Latin

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