evanescent

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*h₁weh₂-“to abandon, leave”
2. Latin · derived fromēvānēscēns“disappearing, vanishing”
3. French · borrowed fromévanescent“evanescent”
4. English todayevanescent

Borrowed from French évanescent (“evanescent”), from Latin ēvānēscēns (“disappearing, vanishing”), present participle of ēvānēscō (“to disappear, vanish; to die out, fade away; to lapse”), from ē- (variant of ex- (prefix meaning ‘away, out’)) + vānēscō (“to vanish”) (from vānus (“empty, vacant, void”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“to abandon, leave”)) + -ēscō (suffix forming verbs with the sense ‘to become’)).

Words from the same roots