exit

Exeō, exīs, exit, exīmus, exītis, exeunt: I go out, thou goest out, she or he or it goes out, we go out, you go out, they go out. From ex ‘out’ and  ‘I go’ et cetera. “Exit rex”: “The king goes out.” 

Technically, our English noun exit comes from the Latin noun exitus, and our verb exit comes in turn from our noun, so Latin exit went from being a verb to being a noun exitus, then went out into English and again became exit and then came back to being a verb.

Latin for ‘goes in’ is init, by the way. And Latin for ‘comes out’ is ēvenit, and Latin for ‘comes in’ is invenit.

Here’s a poem.

Exit

Let us go out
as the green of the leaves goes out
and the red and yellow come out
and the warm summer sun goes out
and the morning frosts come out

Let us go out in it
while the letters go out
and the news comes out
and summer fashions go out
and new books come out

Let us go out and invent events
and watch the people come out
and watch the money come in
until the word goes out
and the furniture goes in

Let us get up, get out, go out
once we’ve found something to go in
and someone to ask us to come in
and as the moon comes out we will go in
and find what flavours friendship comes in

And then we will at last go out
as the night comes in
and the moon comes out
and all wintering beasts go in
and one last light goes out.

2 responses to “exit

  1. The Latin for “goes in” is surprising to a lot of people, innit?

  2. The Latin for “goes in” is surprising to a lot of people, innit?

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