conveyance n.

early 14c., conveien, "to go along with;" late 14c., "to carry, transport;" from Anglo-French conveier, Old French convoiier "to accompany, escort" (Modern French convoyer), from Vulgar Latin *conviare "to accompany on the way," from assimilated form of Latin com "with, together" (see con-) + via "way, road" (from PIE root *wegh- "to go, move, transport in a vehicle").

Meaning "communicate by transmission" is from late 14c. Sense of "act of transferring property from one person to another" is from 1520s. It was a euphemism for "steal" 15c.-17c., which helped broaden its meaning. Related: Conveyed; conveying.

word-forming element attached to verbs to form abstract nouns of process or fact (convergence from converge), or of state or quality (absence from absent); ultimately from Latin -antia and -entia, which depended on the vowel in the stem word, from PIE *-nt-, adjectival suffix.

Latin present-participle endings for verbs stems in -a- were distinguished from those in -i- and -e-. Hence Modern English protestant, opponent, obedient from Latin protestare, opponere, obedire.

As Old French evolved from Latin, these were leveled to -ance, but later French borrowings from Latin (some of them subsequently passed to English) used the appropriate Latin form of the ending, as did words borrowed by English directly from Latin (diligence,absence).

English thus inherited a confused mass of words from French (crescent/croissant), and further confused it since c. 1500 by restoring -ence selectively in some forms of these words to conform with Latin. Thus dependant, but independence, etc.

"act of reconveying," especially "act of transferring a title back to a former owner," 1714; see re- + conveyance.