'Revenue' is French for 'what comes back' — from 'revenir' (to return). Income as a homecoming.
Income, especially when of an organisation or government and of a substantial nature; the total amount of income generated by a business from its operations.
From Old French 'revenue' (a return, a coming back, income), the feminine past participle of 'revenir' (to return, to come back), from Latin 'revenīre' (to come back, to return to a starting point), from 're-' (back, again) + 'venīre' (to come), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- (to come, to go, to step). Revenue is literally 'what comes back' — the money or income that returns to its source after being invested or laid out. The PIE root *gʷem- is highly productive: it gave Latin 'venīre' (to come), whence 'advent,' 'adventure,' 'avenue,' 'convene,' 'event,' 'intervene,' 'invent,' 'prevent,' 'provenance,' 'souvenir,' and 'venue'; it also gave Greek 'báinein' (to go, to step) through a different regular development, whence 'base' and 'basis.' The Old French past participle form 'revenue' (feminine) was
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States takes its name directly from this word's etymology — 'internal revenue' is the income that comes back to the government from within its own borders, as opposed to customs duties on imports. The British equivalent, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, separates the two sources explicitly. Both 'revenue' and 'return' (from Old French 'retourner') express the same idea of coming