révéler (French)
Where does "révéler" come from?
The French verb 'révéler' originates from the Latin 'revēlāre', which literally means 'to unveil' or 'to uncover'. It entered the language through Old French, originally describing the act of making hidden information known. Over time, its meaning expanded from social or divine disclosures to modern technical uses, such as developing a photograph to make an image appear.
Full etymology tree
- révéler (French), 'to reveal, to give away'
- inherited from reveler (Old French)
- borrowed from revēlāre (Latin), 'inflection of revēlō:'
- prefix re- (Latin), 'back, backwards'
- compound of vēlāre (Latin), 'inflection of vēlō:'
- derived from vēlum (Latin), 'a cloth, covering, curtain, veil, awning'
- inherited from *weg- (Proto-Indo-European)
- derived from vēlum (Latin), 'a cloth, covering, curtain, veil, awning'
- borrowed from revēlāre (Latin), 'inflection of revēlō:'
- inherited from reveler (Old French)
Ancestors
- revelare (Latin)
Updated April 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris