英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

breed (v.)[breed 词源字典]: Old English bredan "bring young to birth, carry," also "cherish, keep warm," from West Germanic *brodjan (cognates: Old High German bruoten, German brüten "to brood, hatch"), from *brod- "fetus, hatchling," from PIE *bhreue- "burn, heat" (see brood (n.)). Original notion of the word was incubation, warming to hatch. Sense of "grow up, be reared" (in a clan, etc.) is late 14c. Related: Bred; breeding.[breed etymology, breed origin, 英语词源]
breed (n.): "race, lineage, stock" (originally of animals), 1550s, from breed (v.). Of persons, from 1590s. Meaning "kind, species" is from 1580s.
breeder (n.): 1570s, "one who produces or originates," agent noun from breed (v.). Meaning "one who breeds cattle" or some other animal is recorded from 1530s. Of nuclear reactors, from 1948. As a scornful homosexual term for "heterosexual person," attested from 1986.
breeding (n.): late 14c., "hatching, incubation;" also "formation, development, growth," verbal noun from breed (v.). Meaning "good manners" is from 1590s.
breeze (n.): 1560s, "north or northeast wind," from Old Spanish briza "cold northeast wind;" in West Indies and Spanish Main, the sense shifting to "northeast trade wind," then "fresh wind from the sea." English sense of "gentle or light wind" is from 1620s. An alternative possibility is that the English word is from East Frisian brisen "to blow fresh and strong." The slang for "something easy" is American English, c. 1928.
breeze (v.): "move briskly," 1904, from breeze (n.). Related: Breezed; breezing.
breezeway (n.): 1904, American English, from breeze (n.) + way (n.).
breezy (adj.): 1718, from breeze (n.) + -y (2). Figurative sense "fresh, easygoing, light, airy" is from 1870. Related: Breezily; breeziness.
brekekekex: c. 1600, from Greek (Aristophanes), echoic of the croaking of frogs.
Bremen: city in Germany, from Old Saxon bremo "edge" (related to English brim (n.)), in reference to its site on a river bank.
Bren: type of machine gun used by the British army in World War II, 1937, short for Bren gun, coined from first letters of Brno, Czechoslovakia, and Enfield, near London. The patent was purchased in Brno, and the gun was manufactured in Enfield.
Brenner Pass: historical route over the Alps between Germany and Italy, from Breuni, name of a people who lived near there, perhaps Celtic.
brer: in Brer Rabbit, etc., 1881, Joel Chandler Harris' representation of U.S. Southern black pronunciation of brother.
Brest: city in France, from Celtic, from bre "hill." The city in Belarus is from Slavic berest "elm." Part of Lithuania from 1319, it thus was known, for purposes of distinguishing them, as Brest Litovsk until 1921.
brethren (n.): alternative plural of brother (q.v.); predominant c. 1200-1600s, but surviving now only in religious usage.
Breton (n.): "native or language of Brittany," late 14c., from French form of Briton (q.v.).
breve (n.): mid-15c., musical notation indicating two whole notes, from Latin breve (adj.) "short" in space or time (see brief (adj.)). The grammatical curved line placed over a vowel to indicate "shortness" (1540s) is from the same source.
brevet (n.): mid-14c., from Old French brievet "letter, note, piece of paper; papal indulgence" (13c.), diminutive of bref "letter, note" (see brief (adj.)). Army sense is from 1680s.
brevet (v.): 1839, from French breveter, from brevet (see brevet (n.)). Related: Breveted; breveting.
breviary (n.): 1540s, "brief statement;" sense of "short prayer book used by Catholic priests" is from 1610s, from Latin breviarium "summary," noun use of neuter of adjective breviarius "abridged," from breviare "to shorten, abbreviate," from brevis "short" (see brief (adj.)).