'Revoke' is Latin for 'call back' — sibling of 'provoke,' 'evoke,' 'invoke,' and 'convoke.'
To officially cancel, withdraw, or reverse a decision, decree, permission, or privilege previously granted.
From Old French "revoquer" (to call back, to withdraw), from Latin "revocāre" meaning "to call back, to recall, to retract," composed of "re-" (back, again) and "vocāre" (to call). Latin "vocāre" derives from "vōx" (voice, sound), which traces back to Proto-Indo-European *wekʷ- (to speak, to utter). This root generated a vast network of voice-related vocabulary: Greek "epos" (word, epic poetry) and "opsis" (voice), Sanskrit "vākya" (speech, sentence) and "vāc" (voice, speech), Old English "wōma" (noise, tumult), and Tocharian B "wek" (voice). The
In card games, 'revoke' has a specialized meaning dating to the sixteenth century: to fail to follow suit when able. This use preserves the old sense of 'calling back' — when you revoke in cards, you have implicitly withdrawn from the obligation to play a card of the correct suit, a serious infraction that often carries a penalty.