Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of krevi
Coloured illustration of krevi
#2223 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

to burst open; to crack

Word origin

From German krepieren or its Dutch relative kreveren, both meaning to burst or to die suddenly. Zamenhof took a good many everyday verbs from German, and this is one of the plainer cases.

Origin
German
Root
krepieren

Examples

, .

The ball burst open, and the boys had to stop playing.

.

The old pipe cracked in the cold winter.

.

Her heart almost burst with joy.

No suffix here, whatever the shape suggests. ends in -evi, and Esperanto has no -ev- affix at all: there is nothing to strip, and krev- is one indivisible root. It looks like a seam because the language really is full of them, which is exactly why it pays to know which four letters are load-bearing.

is intransitive: the thing bursts by itself. A tyre, a pipe in the frost, a seed pod, a balloon, a person's patience. To burst something deliberately you need the causative --: i on. What is left afterwards is a krevo, a split or a rupture.

Against its neighbours. Eksplodi is a bang with force behind it, a bomb or a temper. Fendi is transitive and directional, splitting wood along the grain with a blade. Rompi is the general transitive break. is the quiet one: pressure from inside wins, and the skin gives way.

Where this fits

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Esperanto · Free printables

krevi: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "krevi" (to burst open; to crack): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 45.