英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

auger (n.)[auger 词源字典]: c. 1500, faulty separation of Middle English a nauger, from Old English nafogar "nave drill," from Proto-Germanic *nabo-gaizaz (cognates: Old Norse nafarr, Old Saxon nabuger, Old High German nabuger), a compound whose first element is related to nave (n.2) and whose second is identical to Old English gar "a spear, borer" (see gar). For similar misdivisions, see adder. The same change took place in Dutch (avegaar).[auger etymology, auger origin, 英语词源]
aught (n.1): "something," Old English awiht "aught, anything, something," literally "e'er a whit," from Proto-Germanic *aiwi "ever" (from PIE *aiw- "vital force, life, long life, eternity;" see eon) + *wihti "thing, anything whatever" (see wight). In Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, aught and ought occur indiscriminately.
aught (n.2): "nothing, zero," faulty separation of a naught (see naught; see adder for the separation problem).
augment (v.): c. 1400, from Old French augmenter "increase, enhance" (14c.), from Late Latin augmentare "to increase," from Latin augmentum "an increase," from augere "to increase, make big, enlarge, enrich," from PIE root *aug- (1) "to increase" (cognates: Sanskrit ojas- "strength;" Lithuanian augu "to grow," aukstas "high, of superior rank;" Greek auxo "increase," auxein "to increase;" Gothic aukan "to grow, increase;" Old English eacien "to increase"). Related: Augmented; augmenting. As a noun from early 15c.
augmentation (n.): mid-15c., "act of making greater," from Old French augmentacion "increase," from Late Latin augmentationem (nominative augmentatio), noun of action from past participle stem of augmentare (see augment). Meaning "amount by which something is increased" is from 1520s. Musical sense is from 1590s.
augmentative (adj.): c. 1500, from Middle French augmentatif (14c.), from Latin augmentat-, stem of augmentare (see augment).
augmented (adj.): past participle adjective from augment, c. 1600. Musical sense is attested from 1825.
augur (n.): 1540s, from Latin augur, a religious official in ancient Rome who foretold events by interpreting omens, perhaps originally meaning "an increase in crops enacted in ritual," in which case it probably is from Old Latin *augos (genitive *augeris) "increase," and is related to augere "increase" (see augment). The more popular theory is that it is from Latin avis "bird," because the flights, singing, and feeding of birds, along with entrails from bird sacrifices, were important objects of divination (compare auspicious). In that case, the second element would be from garrire "to talk."
augur (v.): c. 1600, from augur (n.). Related: Augured; auguring.
augury (n.): late 14c., "divination from the flight of birds," from Old French augure "divination, soothsaying, sorcery, enchantment," or directly from Latin augurium "divination, the observation and interpretation of omens" (see augur). Figurative sense of "omen, portent, indication" is from 1797 (also often in plural as auguries).
august (adj.): 1660s, from Latin augustus "venerable, majestic, magnificent, noble," probably originally "consecrated by the augurs, with favorable auguries" (see augur (n.)); or else "that which is increased" (see augment).
August: eighth month, 1097, from Latin Augustus (mensis), sixth month of the later Roman calendar, renamed from Sextilis in 8 B.C.E. to honor emperor Augustus Caesar, literally "Venerable Caesar" (see august (adj.)). In England, the name replaced native Weodmonað "weed month."
Augusta: fem. proper name, Latin fem. of Augustus.
Augustan (adj.): 1640s, from Latin Augustanus, "pertaining to Augustus (Caesar)," whose reign was connected with "the palmy period of Latin literature" [OED]; hence, "period of purity and refinement in any national literature" (1712).
Augustine (adj.): c. 1400 in reference to members of the religious order named for St. Augustine the Great (354-430), bishop of Hippo.
Augustus: masc. proper name, from Latin augustus "venerable" (see august). The name originally was a cognomen applied to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus as emperor, with a sense something like "his majesty."
auk (n.): 1670s, from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse alka, probably originally imitative of a water-bird cry (compare Latin olor "swan," Greek elea "marsh bird").
auld (adj.): variant of old that more accurately preserves the Anglo-Saxon vowel. Surviving in northern English and Scottish; distinctly Scottish after late 14c.
aunt (n.): c. 1300, from Anglo-French aunte, Old French ante (Modern French tante, from a 13c. variant), from Latin amita "paternal aunt" diminutive of *amma a baby-talk word for "mother" (cognates: Greek amma "mother," Old Norse amma "grandmother," Middle Irish ammait "old hag," Hebrew em, Arabic umm "mother").

Extended senses include "an old woman, a gossip" (1580s); "a procuress" (1670s); and "any benevolent woman," in American English, where auntie was recorded since c. 1790 as "a term often used in accosting elderly women." The French word also has become the word for "aunt" in Dutch, German (Tante), and Danish. Swedish has retained the original Germanic (and Indo-European) custom of distinguishing aunts by separate terms derived from "father's sister" (faster) and "mother's sister" (moster). The Old English equivalents were faðu and modrige. In Latin, too, the formal word for "aunt on mother's side" was matertera. Some languages have a separate term for aunts-in-law as opposed to blood relations.
auntie (n.): 1787, also aunty, familiar diminutive form of aunt. As a form of kindly address to an older woman to whom one is not related, originally in southern U.S., of elderly slave women.
The negro no longer submits with grace to be called "uncle" or "auntie" as of yore. ["Harper's Magazine," October 1883]