英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

colorful (adj.)[colorful 词源字典]: 1889, in figurative sense of "interesting," from color (n.) + -ful. Related: Colorfully.[colorful etymology, colorful origin, 英语词源]
coloring (n.): late 14c., "action of applying color," noun of action from color (v.). Figurative use by 1540s. Meaning "way something is colored" is early 15c. Coloring book is from 1931.
colorless (adj.): late 14c., from color (n.) + -less. Figurative sense of "lacking vividness" is recorded from 1861. Related: Colorlessness.
colors (n.): "flag of a regiment or ship" 1580s, from color (n.).
colossal (adj.): 1712 (colossic in the same sense is recorded from c. 1600), from French colossal, from colosse, from Latin colossus, from Greek kolossos (see colossus).
Colosseum (n.): 1560s, Medieval Latin name for the classical Amphitheatrum Flavium (begun c.70 C.E.), noun use of neuter of adjective colosseus "gigantic;" perhaps a reference to the colossal statue of Nero that long stood nearby (see colossus).
colossus (n.): "gigantic statue," late 14c., from Latin colossus "a statue larger than life," from Greek kolossos "gigantic statue," which is of unknown origin, used by Herodotus of giant Egyptian statues, and used by Romans of the bronze Helios at the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes. Figurative sense of "any thing of awesome greatness or vastness" is from 1794.
colostomy (n.): 1888, from colon (n.2) + Modern Latin -stoma "opening, orifice," from Greek stoma "opening, mouth" (see stoma).
colostrum (n.): 1570s, from Latin colostrum "first milk from an animal," which is of unknown origin.
colour: chiefly British English spelling of color (q.v.); for ending see -or. Related: Coloured; colouring; colourful; colours.
colposcopy (n.): 1940, from colpo-, Latinized comb. form of Greek kolpos "womb" (used from c. 1900 in medical compounds in sense "vagina;" see gulf (n.)) + -oscopy (see -scope).
colt (n.): Old English colt "colt," originally "young ass," in Biblical translations also used for "young camel," perhaps from Proto-Germanic *kultaz (cognates: Swedish dialectal kult "young boar, piglet; boy," Danish kuld "offspring, brood") and akin to child. Applied to persons from early 13c.
COLT'S TOOTH An old fellow who marries, or keeps a young girl, is ſaid to have a colt's tooth in his head. ["Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1796]
Colt (n.): type of revolver, 1838, originally the manufacture of U.S. gunsmith Samuel Colt (1814-1862).
coltish (adj.): late 14c., "wild, frisky," also in early use "lustful, lewd," from colt + -ish. Lit. sense of "pertaining to a colt" is recorded from 1540s.
columbarium (n.): "subterranean sepulchre in ancient Roman places with niches for urns holding remains," neuter of Latin columbarius, "dove-cote" (so called from resemblance), literally "pertaining to doves;" from columba "dove." Literal sense of "dove-cote" is attested in English from 1881.
Columbia: poetic name for United States of America, earlier for the British colonies there, 1730s, also the nation's female personification, from name of Christopher Columbus (also see Colombia) with Latin "country" ending -ia. A popular name for places and institutions in the U.S. in the post-Revolutionary years, when former tributes to king and crown were out of fashion: such as Columbia University (New York, U.S.) founded in 1754 as King's College; re-named 1784. Also District of Columbia (1791, as Territory of Columbia); "Hail, Columbia" (Joseph Hopkinson, 1798), Barlow's "Columbiad" (1809).
columbine (n.): c. 1300, from Old French columbine "columbine," or directly from Medieval Latin columbina, from Late Latin columbina "verbena," fem. of Latin columbinus, literally "dove-like," from columba "dove." The inverted flower supposedly resembles a cluster of five doves. Also a fem. proper name; in Italian comedy, the name of the mistress of Harlequin.
Columbus: his name is Latinized from his native Italian Cristoforo Colombo, in Spanish Christobal Colon.
America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else, and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. [S.E. Morison, "The Oxford History of the United States," 1965]
column (n.): mid-15c., "vertical division of a page," also "a pillar, post," from Old French colombe (12c., Modern French colonne "column, pillar"), from Latin columna "pillar," collateral form of columen "top, summit," from PIE root *kel- (4) "to project, be prominent" (see hill). Sense of "matter written for a newspaper" dates from 1785.
columnar (adj.): 1728, from Late Latin columnaris "rising in the form of a pillar," from columna "column" (see column).