'Report' is Latin for 'carry back' — from 're-' (back) + 'portare' (to carry). News brought home.
To give a spoken or written account of something; to present oneself formally as having arrived; to make a formal complaint about someone.
From Old French 'reporter' (to carry back, bring back, tell), from Latin 'reportāre' (to carry back), composed of 're-' (back) and 'portāre' (to carry, to bear). The PIE root is *per- (to lead, pass over, transport), one of the most widely represented roots across Indo-European languages. The original sense was physical: a messenger 'reports' by carrying
The phrase 'report for duty' preserves a military meaning that traces directly to the Latin root: you 'carry yourself back' to your commanding officer. A 'reporter' is literally a 'carrier-back' — someone who goes to where events happen and carries the news back to the public. The French word