英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

closing (n.)[closing 词源字典]: late 14c., "act of closing; that which closes," verbal noun from close (v.).[closing etymology, closing origin, 英语词源]
closure (n.): late 14c., "a barrier, a fence," from Old French closure "enclosure; that which encloses, fastening, hedge, wall, fence," also closture "barrier, division; enclosure, hedge, fence, wall" (12c., Modern French clôture), from Late Latin clausura "lock, fortress, a closing" (source of Italian chiusura), from past participle stem of Latin claudere "to close" (see close (v.)). Sense of "act of closing, bringing to a close" is from early 15c. In legislation, especially "closing or stopping of debate." Sense of "tendency to create ordered and satisfying wholes" is 1924, from Gestalt psychology.
clot (n.): Old English clott "a round mass, lump," akin to Dutch kloot "ball," Danish klods "a block, lump," German Klotz "lump, block;" probably related to cleat and clod.
clot (v.): early 15c., from clot (n.). Of fluids from 1590s. Related: Clotted; clotting.
cloth (n.): Old English claþ "a cloth, sail, cloth covering, woven or felted material to wrap around one," hence, also, "garment," from Proto-Germanic *kalithaz (cognates: Old Frisian klath "cloth," Middle Dutch cleet, Dutch kleed "garment, dress," Middle High German kleit, German Kleid "garment"), of obscure origin. As an adjective from 1590s. The cloth "the clerical profession" is from 17c. in reference to characteristic dress.
clothe (v.): Old English claðian, from claþ (see cloth). Related: Clothed, clothing. Other Old English words for this were scrydan and gewædian.
clothes (n.): Old English claðas "cloths, clothes," originally plural of clað "cloth" (see cloth), which, in 19c., after the sense of "article of clothing" had mostly faded from it, acquired a new plural form, cloths, to distinguish it from this word.
clothes-horse (n.): also clothes horse, "upright wooden frame for hanging clothes to dry," 1788, from clothes + horse (n.). Figurative sense of "person whose sole function seems to be to show off clothes" is 1850.
clothes-line (n.): also clothesline, 1830, from clothes + line (n.). As a kind of high tackle in U.S. football (the effect is similar to running into a taut clothesline) attested by 1970; as a verb in this sense by 1959.
clothes-pin (n.): also clothespin, by 1834, American English, from clothes + pin (n.). Clothes-peg in the same sense attested from 1812.
clothier (n.): mid-14c., clother; late 15c., clothyer (late 13c. as a surname) Middle English agent noun from cloth; also see -ier, which is unetymological in this word and probably acquired by bad influence.
Clothilde: fem. proper name, via French, from German Klothilde, literally "famous in battle," from Old High German *klod "famous" (related to Old English hlud; see loud (adj.)) + hild "battle" (see Hilda).
clothing (n.): c. 1200, "action of dressing in clothes," verbal noun from clothe. From late 13c. as "clothes collectively;" 1590s as an adjective.
Clotho: one of the three Fates, from Latin Clotho, from Greek Klotho, literally "the spinner," from klothein "to spin." The three Fates together sometimes were called Klothes "the spinners."
cloture (n.): 1871, the French word for "closure, the action of closing," applied to debates in the French Assembly ("action of closing (debate) by will of a majority"), then to the House of Commons and U.S. Congress, from French clôture, from Old French closture (see closure). It was especially used in English by those opposed to the tactic.
In foreign countries the Clôture has been used notoriously to barricade up a majority against the "pestilent" criticism of a minority, and in this country every "whip" and force is employed by the majority to re-assert its continued supremacy and to keep its ranks intact whenever attacked. How this one-sided struggle to maintain solidarity can be construed into "good for all" is inexplicable in the sense uttered. ["The clôture and the Recent Debate, a Letter to Sir J. Lubbock," London, 1882]
cloud (n.): Old English clud "mass of rock, hill," related to clod. Metaphoric extension to "raincloud, mass of evaporated water in the sky" is attested by c. 1200 based on similarity of cumulus clouds and rock masses. The usual Old English word for "cloud" was weolcan. In Middle English, skie also originally meant "cloud."

The four fundamental types of cloud classification (cirrus, cumulus, stratus, nimbus) were proposed by British amateur meteorologist Luke Howard (1772-1864) in 1802. Figuratively, as something that casts a shadow, from early 15c.; hence under a cloud (c. 1500). In the clouds "removed from earthly things; obscure, fanciful, unreal" is from 1640s. Cloud-compeller translates (poetically) Greek nephelegereta, a Homeric epithet of Zeus.
cloud (v.): early 15c., "overspread with clouds, cover, darken," from cloud (n.). From 1510s as "to render dim or obscure;" 1590s as "to overspread with gloom." Intransitive sense of "become cloudy" is from 1560s. Related: Clouded; clouding.
Cloud Cuckoo Land: Imaginary city built in air, translating Aristophanes' Nephelokokkygia in "The Birds" (414 B.C.E.).
cloud nine (n.): by 1950, sometimes also cloud seven (1956, perhaps by confusion with seventh heaven), American English, of uncertain origin or significance. Some connect the phrase with the 1895 International Cloud-Atlas (Hildebrandsson, Riggenbach and Teisserenc de Bort), long the basic source for cloud shapes, in which, of the ten cloud types, cloud No. 9, cumulonimbus, was the biggest, puffiest, most comfortable-looking. Shipley suggests the sense in this and other expressions might be because, "As the largest one-figure integer, nine is sometimes used for emphasis." The phrase might appear in the 1935 aviation-based play "Ceiling Zero" by Frank Wilbur Wead.
cloudburst (n.): also cloud-burst, 1817, American English, from cloud (n.) + burst (n.). Parallels German Wolkenbruch.