英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

blank (adj.)[blank 词源字典]: early 13c., "white, pale, colorless," from Old French blanc "white, shining," from Frankish *blank "white, gleaming," or some other West Germanic source (compare Old Norse blakkr, Old English blanca "white horse;" Old High German blanc, blanch; German blank "shining, bright"), from Proto-Germanic *blangkaz "to shine, dazzle," extended form of PIE root *bhel- (1) "to shine, flash, burn" (see bleach (v.)).

Meaning "having empty spaces" evolved c. 1400. Sense of "void of expression" (a blank look) is from 1550s. Spanish blanco, Italian bianco are said to be from Germanic. Related: Blankly, blankness.[blank etymology, blank origin, 英语词源]
blank (n.): late 14c. as the name of a small French coin; 1550s as "white space in the center of a target," from the same source as blank (adj.). Meaning "empty space" (in a document, etc.) is from c. 1570. Meaning "losing lottery ticket" (1560s) is behind the expression draw a blank. The word has been "for decorum's sake, substituted for a word of execration" [OED] from 1854. From 1896 as short for blank cartridge (itself from 1826).
blank (v.): 1540s, "to nonplus, disconcert, shut up;" 1560s, "to frustrate," from blank (adj.). Sports sense of "defeat (another team) without allowing a score" is from 1870. Meaning "to become blank or empty" is from 1955. Related: Blanked; blanking.
blank verse (n.): 1580s; the thing itself is attested in English poetry from mid-16c. and is classical in origin.
blanket (n.): c. 1300, "bed-clothing; white woolen stuff," from Old French blanchet "light wool or flannel cloth; an article made of this material," diminutive of blanc "white" (see blank (adj.), which had a secondary sense of "a white cloth." Wet blanket (1830) is from the notion of a person who throws a damper on social situations like a wet blanket smothers a fire. In U.S. history, a blanket Indian (1859) was one using the traditional garment instead of wearing Western dress.
Only 26,000 blanket Indians are left in the United States. ["Atlantic Monthly," March 1906]
blanket (v.): c. 1600, "to cover with or as with a blanket;" also "to toss in a blanket" (as punishment), from blanket (n.). Related: Blanketed; blanketing.
blare (v.): late 14c., bleren "to wail," possibly from an unrecorded Old English *blæren, or from Middle Dutch bleren "to bleat, cry, bawl, shout." Probably echoic, either way. Related: Blared; blaring. As a noun from 1809, from the verb.
blaring (adj.): mid-15c., from present participle of blare. Of things other than sounds, from 1866.
blarney (n.): 1796, from Blarney Stone (which is said to make a persuasive flatterer of any who kiss it), in a castle near Cork, Ireland. As Bartlett explains it, the reason is the difficulty of the feat of kissing the stone where it sits high up in the battlement: "to have ascended it, was proof of perseverence, courage, and agility, whereof many are supposed to claim the honor who never achieved the adventure." So to have kissed the Blarney Stone came to mean "to tell wonderful tales" ["Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848]. The word reached wide currency through Lady Blarney, the smooth-talking flatterer in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" (1766). As a verb from 1803.
blase (adj.): "bored from overindulgence," 1819, from French blasé, past participle of blaser "to satiate" (17c.), which is of unknown origin. Perhaps from Dutch blazen "to blow" (related to English blast), with a sense of "puffed up under the effects of drinking."
blase: see blasé.
blaspheme (v.): mid-14c., from Old French blasfemer "to blaspheme" (14c., Modern French blasphémer), from Church Latin blasphemare (also in Late Latin "revile, reproach"), from Greek blasphemein "to speak lightly or amiss of sacred things, to slander," from blasphemos "evil-speaking" (see blasphemy). A reintroduction after the original word had been worn down and sense-shifted to blame (v.). Related: Blasphemed; blaspheming.
blasphemous (adj.): early 15c., blasfemous, from Old French blasfemeus or directly from Late Latin blasphemus, from blasphemare (see blaspheme).
blasphemy (n.): early 13c., from Old French blasfemie "blasphemy," from Late Latin blasphemia, from Greek blasphemia "a speaking ill, impious speech, slander," from blasphemein "to speak evil of." Second element is pheme "utterance," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say" (see fame); first element uncertain, perhaps related to blaptikos "hurtful," though blax "slack (in body and mind), stupid" also has been suggested.
blast (n.): Old English blæst "blowing, breeze, puff of wind," from Proto-Germanic *bles- (cognates: Old Norse blastr, Old High German blast "a blowing, blast," German blasen, Gothic blesan "to blow"), from PIE *bhle- "to blow," probably a variant of root *bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell" (see bole).

Meaning "explosion" is from 1630s; that of "noisy party, good time" is from 1953, American English slang. Sense of "strong current of air for iron-smelting" (1690s) led to blast furnace and transferred sense in full blast "the extreme" (1839). Blast was the usual word for "a smoke of tobacco" c. 1600.
blast (v.): Old English blæstan "to blow, belch forth," from the root of blast (n.). Since 16c., often "to breathe on balefully." Meaning "to blow up by explosion" is from 1758. Related: Blasted; blasting. Blast off (n.) is attested from 1950.
blasted (adj.): "stricken by malignant forces (natural or supernatural), cursed, blighted," 1550s, from blast (v.), with the notion of "balefully breathed upon." In the sense of "cursed, damned" it is attested from 1680s. Meaning "drunk or stoned" dates from 1972 (blast (v.) "smoke marijuana" attested from 1959).
blastema (n.): 1849, Modern Latin, from Greek blastema "offspring, offshoot," from stem of blastanein "to shoot forth," from blastos "sprout, germ," which is of unknown origin. Related: Blastemal.
blasto-: before vowels blast-, word-forming element used in scientific compounds to mean "germ, bud," from Greek blasto-, comb. form of blastos "sprout, germ," which is of unknown origin.
blastocyst (n.): 1876, from blasto- + cyst.