venture
Before "venture" meant a risky enterprise, it meant arrival. From Latin advenire — to come to. The risk is downstream of what arrives.
stack
Modern English
venture
a risky enterprise, the act of putting oneself out into uncertainty
Middle English
venture
chance, accident, fortune, occurrence — clipped from aventure
Old French
aventure
what arrived; what happened; chance
Vulgar Latin
*adventura
that-which-is-about-to-come (future participle of advenire)
Latin
advenire
to come to, to arrive (ad- to + venire come)
PIE
*gʷem-
to go, to come — cognate with English come
how it shifted
The word means risk now. Venture capital. A business venture. To venture an opinion. Underneath, the older sense ran differently. Venture was clipped from aventure — chance, what arrived, fortune. The word didn't name uncertainty as its core; it named what came.
A venture, before it was the risk, was the arrival. The risk is downstream — it's the part of the arrival we can't see yet.
cousins
- advent — the coming-to; a season of waiting for arrival
- event — what comes-out; the thing that emerges
- convene — to come-together
- intervene — to come-between
- revenue — what comes-back
- avenue — a way-of-coming; a route by which something approaches
- souvenir — sub-venire, to come up from below — what surfaces in memory
- parvenu — one who has come through
- adventure — venture's unclipped sibling, with the unknown sharper
same root, deeper entry
- covenant *gʷem-