英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

boondoggle (n.)[boondoggle 词源字典]: 1935, American English, of uncertain origin, popularized during the New Deal as a contemptuous word for make-work projects for the unemployed. Said to have been a pioneer word for "gadget;" it also was by 1932 a Boy Scout term for a kind of woven braid.[boondoggle etymology, boondoggle origin, 英语词源]
boonies (n.): colloquial shortening of boondocks; by 1964, originally among U.S. troops in Vietnam War (in reference to the rural areas of the country, as opposed to Saigon).
boor (n.): 13c., from Old French bovier "herdsman," from Latin bovis, genitive of bos "cow, ox." Re-introduced 16c. from Dutch boer, from Middle Dutch gheboer "fellow dweller," from Proto-Germanic *buram "dweller," especially "farmer," from PIE *bhu-, from root *bheue- (see be). Original meaning was "peasant farmer" (compare German Bauer, Dutch boer, Danish bonde), and in English it was at first applied to agricultural laborers in or from other lands, as opposed to the native yeoman; negative connotation attested by 1560s (in boorish), from notion of clownish rustics. Related: Boorishness.
boorish (adj.): 1560s, from boor (n.) + -ish. Related: Boorishly; boorishness.
boost (v.): 1815, literal and figurative, American English, of unknown origin. Related: Boosted; boosting. As a noun by 1825.
booster (n.): 1890, "one who boosts" something, agent noun from boost (v.). Electrical sense is recorded from 1894. Young child's booster chair is attested under that name from 1960.
boot (n.1): footwear, early 14c., from Old French bote "boot" (12c.), with corresponding words in Provençal and Spanish, of unknown origin, perhaps from a Germanic source. Originally for riding boots only. An old Dorsetshire word for "half-boots" was skilty-boots [Halliwell, Wright].
boot (n.2): "profit, use," Old English bot "help, relief, advantage; atonement," literally "a making better," from Proto-Germanic *boto (see better (adj.)). Compare German Buße "penance, atonement," Gothic botha "advantage." Now mostly in phrase to boot (Old English to bote).
boot (v.2): "start up a computer," 1975, from bootstrap (v.), a 1958 derived verb from bootstrap (n.) in the computer sense.
boot (v.1): "to kick," 1877, American English, from boot (n.1). Generalized sense of "eject, kick out" is from 1880. Related: Booted; booting.
boot camp (n.): by 1941, U.S. Marines slang, said to be from boot (n.) as slang for "recruit," which supposedly dates from the Spanish-American War and is a synecdoche from boots, leggings worn by U.S. sailors.
boot-licker (n.): also bootlicker, "toady, servile follower," 1846, from boot (n.1) + agent noun from lick (v.). Foot-licker in the same sense is from 1610s.
booth (n.): mid-12c., from Old Danish boþ "temporary dwelling," from East Norse *boa "to dwell," from Proto-Germanic *bowan-, from PIE root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow" (see be). See also bound (adj.2). Compare German Bude "booth, stall," Middle Dutch boode, Lithuanian butas "house," Old Irish both "hut," Bohemian bouda, Polish buda, some probably borrowed from East Norse, some formed from the PIE root.
bootleg (n.): "leg of a boot," 1630s, from boot (n.1) + leg (n.). As an adjective in reference to illegal iquor, 1889, American English slang, from the trick of concealing a flask of liquor down the leg of a high boot. Before that the bootleg was the place to secret knives and pistols.
bootlegger (n.): 1889, from bootleg (q.v.).
bootlegging (n.): also boot-legging, 1890, from bootleg (q.v.).
bootless (adj.2): late Old English botleas "unpardonable, not to be atoned for, without help or remedy," from boot (n.2) + -less. Meaning "useless, unprofitable" is from early 15c.
bootless (adj.1): "lacking boots," late 14c., from boot (n.1) + -less.
bootstrap (n.): also boot-strap, tab or loop at the back of the top of a men's boot, which the wearer hooked a finger through to pull the boots on, 1870, from boot (n.) + strap (n.).

Circa 1900, to pull (oneself) up by (one's) bootstraps was used figuratively of an impossible task (Among the "practical questions" at the end of chapter one of Steele's "Popular Physics" schoolbook (1888) is, "30. Why can not a man lift himself by pulling up on his boot-straps?"). By 1916 its meaning expanded to include "better oneself by rigorous, unaided effort." The meaning "fixed sequence of instructions to load the operating system of a computer" (1953) is from the notion of the first-loaded program pulling itself, and the rest, up by the bootstrap.
booty (n.): "plunder, gain, profit," mid-15c., from Old French butin "booty" (14c.), from a Germanic source akin to Middle Low German bute "exchange." Influenced in form and sense by boot (n.2) and in form by nouns ending in -y. Meaning "female body considered as a sex object" is 1920s, black slang.