There is so far no agreement among Plato's commentators ass to how to interpret the Greek verb at v a t at the passage 476d-480e of the Republic. For the ambiguity and multi-meaning of the very cause difficulty in interpreting tne passage in question. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the different meanings of the verb ε l v a l to see which one of them is the suitable candidate for interpreting the present passage. The first part of this paper is on the existential sense of the verb; the second part is on the veridical sense; and the final part of the paper is on the predicative sense. In the course of discussion, I shall show the reasons why the first and second sense of the verb ε l v α l cannot fit on with the passage ,only can the third one give a complete and reasonable account of it.