The story
- Latin · borrowed fromdīvāricātus
- English todaydivaricate
The verb is first attested in 1623, the adjective in 1788; borrowed from Latin dīvāricātus, perfect passive participle of dīvāricō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from dis- + vāricō (“to straddle, to stretch (the legs) apart”), from vāricus (“straddling”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.