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Sep 14, 2026

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Words you might be tempted to emend

This week’s words
evert

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Engraving: Samuel E. Brown

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Uncommon adjectives

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

This week, the letter a is taking a vacation, and e is covering its shifts. Each of our five words differs from a familiar word by that single substitution. They may look like typos, but they’re all real words, and none contains an a.

For each word, can you write a sentence using it alongside its more familiar lookalike?

evert

PRONUNCIATION:

(i-VUHRT)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To turn inside out or outward.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin evertere (to overturn), from e- (out) + vertere (to turn). Earliest documented use: 1533.

NOTES:

Some sea stars evert their stomachs through their mouths to digest prey outside their bodies. They take dining out literally. Evert and avert share Latin vertere (to turn). Their prefixes supply the difference: e- (out) vs a- (away). If the wind everts your umbrella, averting your eyes won’t help.

USAGE:

“And the spattery gale that has knocked over parking signs and everted umbrellas all morning suddenly quits an hour before match time.” David Foster Wallace; Roger Federer as Religious Experience; The New York Times; Aug 20, 2006.

See more usage examples of evert in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is. -Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (14 Sep 1917-1986)

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