† appairapairv.

Etymology: < Old French empeire-r, ampeire-r (modern empirer ), to worsen, < em- = en- into + *peire-r < Latin pēiōrāre to make worse, < pēiōr- worse: compare Provençal apejurar . The prefix of the early ampayre , anpayre , was subsequently treated like the native an- before a consonant, and reduced to a- , which was in 15th cent. erroneously spelt ap- by form-association with words like ap-pear : see ap- prefix¹. As early as 1300 a-paire was aphetized to paire , peire . Caxton restored the French form empeyr , empayr , empair , which, early in 16th cent., began to be refashioned after Latin as impair n.¹, now the current form. Ampayr, anpayr, apayr, appair, enpayre, empair, impair, are thus variants of the same word.