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たとえば looks like it should be the ば form of a verb, but is that true? I know of
the word 例える, but the ば form of this would be 例えれば. The phrase 例えるなら also
exists, which would be a cousin if it were really based on some ば form. It's
really hard to search for information about this because たとえば is ubiquitous in
its use. Grammatically it seems that ば verbs could be used in this way with no
problem, so everything in my mind tells me that this is the case. But
ultimately I have no real proof of that.

Is たとえば based on a ば verb etymologically, or did it come about by some other
mechanism? Is there a たとう from which it originally came?

Note: This question originally suggested for some reason that there was no
verb "たとう," a statement that turned out to be completely false.
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2013-03-06T07:16:36.587
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etymology
Is たとえば the ば form of a verb?
> As far as I can tell there is no "たとう" that would give rise to たとえば.

Actually, there is
[たと・う](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A8&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&index=11556800&pagenum=1).
たとえば used to be
[たとへば](http://kobun.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A8%E3%81%B8%E3%81%B0).
It's been around for a while as there are examples from 徒然草 and 平家物語, etc.

If you want to get into details, it has them
[here](http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E8%AD%AC%E3%81%B8%E3%81%B0):

【文語】ハ行四段活用の動詞「譬ふ」の已然形である「譬へ」に、接続助詞「ば」が付いた形。

As you can see `ば` is a 接続助詞.
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answer