To Repair to Another Room

If you say you’re going to repair to the drawing room after dinner, meaning that that you will “go” to that room, you’re using a word that’s completely different from the verb repair meaning “to fix.” These words come from different roots. The repair that means “to go” derives from the Latin word repatriare, a relative of English repatriate, meaning “to return to one’s own country.” The other repair meaning “to mend” comes Latin reparare meaning “to restore.” This is part of a complete episode.

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