英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

cotton (n.)[cotton 词源字典]: late 13c., from Old French coton (12c.), ultimately (via Provençal, Italian, or Old Spanish) from Arabic qutn, a word perhaps of Egyptian origin. Philip Miller of the Chelsea Physic Garden sent the first cotton seeds to American colony of Georgia in 1732. Also ultimately from the Arabic word, Dutch katoen, German Kattun, Provençal coton, Italian cotone, Spanish algodon, Portuguese algodão. Cotton gin is recorded from 1794 (see gin (n.2)).[cotton etymology, cotton origin, 英语词源]
cotton (v.): "to get on with" someone (usually with to), 1560s, perhaps from Welsh cytuno "consent, agree." But perhaps also a metaphor from cloth finishing and thus from cotton (n.). Related: Cottoned; cottoning.
cotton-picking (adj.): as a deprecatory term first recorded in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but a similar noun meaning "contemptible person" dates to around 1919, perhaps with racist overtones that have faded over the years. Before mechanization, cotton picking was the most difficult labor on a cotton plantation.
I drove out to a number of the farms near Denison and found many very young white children working all day in the hot sun picking and dragging sacks of cotton. In one field the labor corps consisted of one woman and six children, one of them 5 years, one 6 years, one 7 years, one 9 years, and two about 11. The father was plowing. The 5 and 6 year olds worked all day as did the rest. The 7-year-old said he picked 50 pounds a day and the 9 year old 75 pounds. (A good picker averages several hundred a day.) School begins late on account of the cotton picking, but the children nearly all prefer school to the picking. Picking hours are long, hot, and deadly monotonous. While the very young children seem to enjoy it, very soon their distaste for it grows into all-absorbing hatred for all work. ["Field Notes of Lewis W. Hine, Child-Labor Conditions in Texas," report to U.S. Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations, 1916]
Cottonian: library in the British Museum, named for antiquarian Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1570-1631). He donated some book to the state and his grandson donated the rest. It was badly damaged in a fire in 1731. The surname represents Old English cotum, plural of cot "cottage."
cotyledon (n.): from 1540s, in various sense, from Latin cotyledon "pennywort, navelwort," from Greek kotyledon "cup-shaped cavity," from kotyle "hollow thing, small vessel," also the name of a small liquid measure (nearly a half-pint); which is of uncertain origin. Botanical sense is 1776, from Linnaeus (1751).
couch (v.): c. 1300, "to overlay with gold, inlay," from Old French couchier "to lay down, place; go to bed, put to bed," from Latin collocare "to lay, place, station, arrange," from com- "together" (see com-) + locare "to place" (see locate). Meaning "to put into words" is from 1520s. Related: Couched; couching. Heraldic couchant ("lying down with the head up") is late 15c., from the French present participle.
couch (n.): mid-14c., from Old French couche (12c.) "a bed, lair," from coucher "to lie down," from Latin collocare (see couch (v.)). Traditionally, a couch has the head end only raised, and only half a back; a sofa has both ends raised and a full back; a settee is like a sofa but may be without arms; an ottoman has neither back nor arms, nor has a divan, the distinctive feature of which is that it goes against a wall. Couch potato first recorded 1979.
couch-grass (n.): 1570s; the first element is a corruption of Old English cwice (see quick).
cougar (n.): 1774, from French couguar, Buffon's adaption (influenced by jaguar) of a word the Portuguese picked up in Brazil as çuçuarana, perhaps from Tupi susuarana, from suasu "deer" + rana "false." Another proposed source is Guarani guaçu ara. Evidently the cedillas dropped off the word before Buffon got it. Slang sense of "older woman (35-plus) who seeks younger males as sex partners" is attested by 2002; said in some sources to have originated in Canada, probably from some reference to predatory feline nature.
cough (v.): early 14c., coughen, probably in Old English, but not recorded, from Proto-Germanic *kokh- (with the rough "kh" of German or of Scottish loch; cognates: Middle Dutch kochen, Middle High German kuchen). Onomatopoeic. Related: Coughed; coughing. As a noun from c. 1300.
could (v.): Old English cuðe, past tense of cunnan "to be able" (see can (v.1)); ending changed 14c. to standard English -d(e). The excrescent -l- was added 15c.-16c. on model of would, should, where it is historical.
couldn't: by 1670s, contraction of could + not.
coulee (n.): "deep ravine, seasonally flooded," 1804, a North American word, originally in areas explored by French trappers, from French coulée "flow" (17c.), from fem. past participle of couler "to flow," from Latin colare "to filter, strain" (see colander).
coulomb (n.): 1881, named for French chemist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736-1806), who devised a method of measuring electrical quantity. It is the quantity of electricity conveyed in 1 second by a current of 1 ampere. The name is a French form of Columbus.
coulrophobia (n.): "morbid fear of clowns," by 2001 (said in Web sites to date from 1990s or even 1980s), a popular term, not from psychology, possibly facetious, though the phenomenon is real enough; said to be built from Greek kolon "limb," with some supposed sense of "stilt-walker," hence "clown" + -phobia.

Ancient Greek words for "clown" were sklêro-paiktês, from paizein "to play (like a child);" or deikeliktas; other classical words used for theatrical clowns were related to "rustic," "peasant" (compare Latin fossor "clown," literally "laborer, digger," related to fossil).

The whole creation looks suspiciously like the sort of thing idle pseudo-intellectuals invent on the Internet and which every smarty-pants takes up thereafter; perhaps it is a mangling of Modern Greek klooun "clown," which is the English word borrowed into Greek.
coulter (n.): Old English culter, from Latin culter "a knife, iron blade in a plowshare," from PIE root *(s)kel- "to cut" (see scale (n.1)). As a surname (13c.), probably from Coulter in Lancashire.
Coumadin (n.): by 1953, name for human anti-coagulant use of the rat poison warfarin sodium, abstracted from the chemical name, 3-(α-acetonylbenzyl)-4-hydroxycoumarin; earlier known as Dicoumarol, it attained publicity when it was used in 1955 to treat U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower after a heart attack. The coumarin element (1830) is from French coumarine, from coumarou, the native name in Guyana of the tonquin bean, one source of the substance.
council (n.): early 12c., from Anglo-French cuncile, from Old North French concilie (Old French concile, 12c.) "assembly; council meeting; body of counsellors," from Latin concilium "group of people, meeting," from com- "together" (see com-) + calare "to call" (see claim (v.)). Tendency to confuse it in form and meaning with counsel has been consistent since 16c.
councillor (n.): late 14c., alteration of counsellor by assimilation to council.
councilor (n.): see councillor.