英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

Big Dipper (n.)[Big Dipper 词源字典]: American English name for the seven-star asterism (known in England as the plough; see Charles's Wain) in the constellation Ursa Major, first attested 1833 as simply the Dipper (sometimes Great Dipper, its companion constellation always being the Little Dipper). See dipper.[Big Dipper etymology, Big Dipper origin, 英语词源]
Big Mac: trademark name (McDonald's Corp.) of a type of hamburger sandwich, patented 1974 but alleged to have been in use from 1957.
big mouth (n.): also bigmouth "person who talks too much," 1889, American English, from big + mouth (n.).
big shot (n.): "important person," 1929, American English, from Prohibition-era gangster slang; earlier in the same sense was great shot (1861). Ultimately a reference to large type of gunshot.
big time (n.): "upper reaches of a profession or pursuit," c. 1910 from vaudeville slang; the phrase was common in colloquial use late 19c.-early 20c. in a broad range of senses: "party, shindig, fun, frolic."
big-tent (adj.): in reference to welcoming all sorts and not being ideologically narrow, American English, 1982 with reference to religion, by 1987 with reference to politics.
bigamist (n.): 1630s; see bigamy + -ist. Earlier in the same sense was bigame (mid-15c.), from Old French bigame, from Medival Latin bigamus.
bigamous (adj.): 1690s; see bigamy + -ous.
bigamy (n.): "state of having two wives or husbands at the same time," mid-13c., from Old French bigamie (13c.), from Church Latin bigamia, from Late Latin bigamus "twice married," a hybrid from bi- "double" (see bi-) + Greek gamos "marrying" (see gamete). The Greek word was digamos "twice married."
Bigamie is unkinde ðing, On engleis tale, twie-wifing. [c. 1250]
In Middle English, also of two successive marriages or marrying a widow.
bigass (adj.): also big-ass, big-assed, by 1945, U.S. military slang, from big + ass (2).
bigfoot (n.): supposed elusive man-like creature of the Pacific Northwest, 1963, from big (adj.) + foot (n.).
bigger (adj.): comparative of big.
biggest (adj.): superlative of big.
biggie (n.): 1931, from big + -ie.
bight (n.): Old English byht "bend, angle, corner" (related to bow), from Proto-Germanic *buhtiz (cognates: Middle Low German bucht, German Bucht, Dutch bocht, Danish bught "bight, bay"), from PIE root *bheug- (3) "to bend," with derivatives referring to bent, pliable, or curved objects (cognates: Old English beag, Old High German boug "ring;" see bow (v.)). Sense of "indentation on a coastline" is from late 15c.
bigness (n.): late 15c., from big + -ness.
bigot (n.): 1590s, "sanctimonious person, religious hypocrite," from French bigot (12c.), which is of unknown origin. Earliest French use of the word is as the name of a people apparently in southern Gaul, which led to the now-doubtful, on phonetic grounds, theory that the word comes from Visigothus. The typical use in Old French seems to have been as a derogatory nickname for Normans, the old theory (not universally accepted) being that it springs from their frequent use of the Germanic oath bi God. But OED dismisses in a three-exclamation-mark fury one fanciful version of the "by god" theory as "absurdly incongruous with facts." At the end, not much is left standing except Spanish bigote "mustache," which also has been proposed but not explained, and the chief virtue of which as a source seems to be there is no evidence for or against it.

In support of the "by God" theory, as a surname Bigott, Bygott are attested in Normandy and in England from the 11c., and French name etymology sources (such as Dauzat) explain it as a derogatory name applied by the French to the Normans and representing "by god." The English were known as goddamns 200 years later in Joan of Arc's France, and during World War I Americans serving in France were said to be known as les sommobiches (see also son of a bitch). But the sense development in bigot is difficult to explain. According to Donkin, the modern use first appears in French 16c. This and the earliest English sense, "religious hypocrite," especially a female one, might have been influenced by beguine and the words that cluster around it. Sense extended 1680s to other than religious opinions.
bigoted (adj.): 1640s, from bigot (q.v.).
bigotry (n.): 1670s, from French bigoterie "sanctimoniousness," from bigot (see bigot).
bigwig (n.): 1731, from big + wig, in reference to the imposing wigs formerly worn by men of rank or authority.