Revamp comes from re- ('again') + vamp ('the upper front part of a shoe'), from Anglo-Norman avantpie, from avant ('before') + pie ('foot'), from Latin pes ('foot'); to revamp originally meant to repair a shoe's vamp. The historical chain includes Old French avantpie and Latin pes. The quoted older senses, "again", "the upper front part of a shoe", "before", and "foot", supply the semantic anchors for revamp. The formation is best read as compound and borrowed: the word revamp carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a verb, "to renovate or give new and improved form to something". English derivatives include revamping; related English forms include vamp. The result is a verb and noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.