/dɪˈvoʊt/
[verb] To give your time, energy, or attention fully to something or someone. If you devote yourself to a cause, you commit to it completely and with great dedication.
To 'devote' something once meant to offer it as a sacred vow to the gods — making every dedicated hobbyist an accidental priest.
The word 'devote' reaches back to the Latin verb 'devovere', a compound built from the prefix 'de-', meaning 'formally' or 'completely', and 'vovere', meaning 'to vow' or 'to make a solemn promise'. In ancient Rome, a 'votum' was a sacred pledge made to a god — a binding spiritual contract in which a person promised something in exchange for divine favour. When a Roman general facing defeat in battle 'devoted' himself, he was performing a ritual act of self-sacrifice, offering his own life to the gods of the underworld in exchange for his army's victory. This was not a metaphor. It was a desperate, solemn ceremony.
From 'devovere' came the Latin past participle 'devotus', meaning 'consecrated' or 'bound by a vow'. This form moved into Old French as 'dévoter', carrying much of its religious weight into the medieval Christian world, where devotion to God, to the Virgin Mary, or to a particular saint became the central meaning. A 'devout' person was one who had, in a very real spiritual sense, pledged their soul to something holy. The word 'devout' entered Middle English directly from Old French 'devot' around the 13th century, keeping its deeply pious flavour.
'Devote' as a verb entered English somewhat later, in the late 16th century, drawn directly from the Latin 'devotus'. At first it retained its solemn, quasi-religious register — to devote something was to set it apart formally, to consecrate it. You might devote a temple, or devote your life to God. Writers of the Elizabethan era used it with an unmistakable sense of gravity and ceremony, as if any act of devotion still carried the echo of a priestly vow.
Over the 17th and 18th centuries, the word began to loosen from its strictly religious moorings. People started to speak of devoting time to study, devoting energy to a project, or devoting oneself to a friend. The vow was still implied — the sense of complete commitment remained — but the altar had been moved from the temple into the study, the workshop, and the drawing room. This secularisation of sacred language is a remarkably common process in English, and 'devote' is one of its most elegant examples.
The Latin root 'vovere' left a rich family of descendants in English. 'Vovere' gave Latin 'votum' — a vow — which passed into Old French as 'vou' and then into Middle English as 'vow', the direct promise we still make at weddings. The same root produced 'vote', from Latin 'votum' meaning a wish or a formal expression of will, which passed through Italian 'voto' and entered English in the 16th century. 'Devout', as noted, came via Old French 'devot' from Latin 'devotus'. Even the word 'votary' — one who is bound by a vow — traces the same path from Latin 'votarius'. Every time we devote an afternoon to reading, make a vow at an altar, or cast a vote in an election, we are participating in a tradition of solemn promise-making that stretches back to Roman priests standing before the fires of their gods.