Emovere

Emovere is a Latin verb meaning to move out, dislodge, or more broadly to arouse or excite. It is formed with the prefix e- or ex- plus movere, the base “to move.” The infinitive is emovere; the perfect tense is emovi; the participle emotus and related forms appear in classical Latin texts. In usage, emovere covers both literal physical displacement and figurative actions that compel a response.

In classical Latin, emovere is commonly employed with concrete objects as well as with mental or emotional targets. Literal senses include removing or moving something from a place, while figurative senses include stirring the mind or emotions, such as moving someone to action, to anger, or to fear. Phrases such as emovere animos or emovere metus illustrate its extended meaning of provoking an emotional or motivational response.

The verb is the etymological source of several English terms. It contributed to the noun emotion and the adjective emotional, both derived ultimately from Latin emotio, meaning a moving or stirring of feeling, itself from emovere. The related French verb émouvoir carries a similar sense and supplied a pathway into Modern French and, through it, into English as emote, meaning to express emotion. The Latin term and its derivatives remain topics of interest in philology, Latin syntax, and the study of the historical development of words related to movement and affect.

Today, emovere is mainly encountered in scholarly discussions of Latin vocabulary and in analyses of Romance-language derivatives, rather than in ordinary contemporary usage.