英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

duty (n.)[duty 词源字典]: late 13c., from Anglo-French duete, from Old French deu "due, owed; proper, just," from Vulgar Latin *debutus, from Latin debitus, past participle of debere "to owe" (see debt). Related: Duties. The sense of "tax or fee on imports, exports, etc." is from late 15c.; duty-free as a noun is attested from 1958.[duty etymology, duty origin, 英语词源]
duvet (n.): 1758, from French duvet "down," earlier dumet, diminutive of dum "down."
DVD: 1995, initialism (acronym) from Digital Video Disc, later changed to Digital Versatile Disc.
Earlier this year, electronics giant Toshiba positioned the first DVD players available in the U.S. as a home entertainment unit (retail price $600). ["Black Enterprise" magazine, June 1997]
dwarf (n.): Old English dweorh, dweorg (West Saxon), duerg (Mercian), "very short human being," from Proto-Germanic *dweraz (cognates: Old Frisian dwerch, Old Saxon dwerg, Old High German twerg, German Zwerg, Old Norse dvergr), perhaps from PIE *dhwergwhos "something tiny," but with no established cognates outside Germanic. The mythological sense is 1770, from German (it seems never to have developed independently in English).
Whilst in this and other ways the dwarfs do at times have dealings with mankind, yet on the whole they seem to shrink from man; they give the impression of a downtrodden afflicted race, which is on the point of abandoning its ancient home to new and more powerful invaders. There is stamped on their character something shy and something heathenish, which estranges them from intercourse with christians. They chafe at human faithlessness, which no doubt would primarily mean the apostacy from heathenism. In the poems of the Mid. Ages, Laurin is expressly set before us as a heathen. It goes sorely against the dwarfs to see churches built, bell-ringing ... disturbs their ancient privacy; they also hate the clearing of forests, agriculture, new fangled pounding-machinery for ore. ["Teutonic Mythology," Jacob Grimm, transl. Stallybrass, 1883]
The shift of the Old English guttural at the end of the word to modern -f is typical (compare enough, draft). Old English plural dweorgas became Middle English dwarrows, later leveled down to dwarfs. The use of dwarves for the legendary race was popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien. As an adjective, from 1590s.
dwarf (v.): "to render dwarfish," 1620s, from dwarf (n.); sense of "to cause to look small" is from 1850. Related: Dwarfed; dwarfing.
dwarfish (adj.): 1560s, from dwarf (n.) + -ish. Related: Dwarfishly; dwarfishness.
dweeb (n.): 1968, U.S. college student slang, probably a variant of feeb "feeble or feeble-minded person."
dwell (v.): Old English dwellan "to mislead, deceive," originally "to make a fool of, lead astray," from Proto-Germanic *dwelan "to go or lead astray" (cognates: Old Norse dvöl "delay," dvali "sleep;" Middle Dutch dwellen "to stun, make giddy, perplex;" Old High German twellen "to hinder, delay;" Danish dvale "trance, stupor," dvaelbær "narcotic berry," source of Middle English dwale "nightshade"), from PIE *dhwel-, extended form of root *dheu- (1) "dust, cloud, vapor, smoke" (and related notions of "defective perception or wits").

Related to Old English gedweola "error, heresy, madness." Sense shifted in Middle English through "hinder, delay," to "linger" (c. 1200, as still in phrase to dwell upon), to "make a home" (mid-13c.). Related: Dwelled; dwelt; dwells.
dweller (n.): late 14c., agent noun from dwell (v.).
dwelling (n.): "place of residence," mid-14c., verbal noun from dwell (v.).
dwindle (v.): 1590s, apparently diminutive and frequentative of Middle English dwinen "waste away, fade, vanish," from Old English dwinan, from Proto-Germanic *dwinan (cognates: Dutch dwijnen "to vanish," Old Norse dvina, Danish tvine, Low German dwinen), from PIE *dheu- (3) "to die" (see die (v.)). Related: Dwindled; dwindling.
dyad (n.): 1670s, from Latin dyad-, stem of dyas, from Greek dyas "the number two, a group of two," from duo "two" (see two). Specific sense in chemistry ("a bivalent element") is by 1865; also used in biology, poetics, mathematics. Related: Dyadic.
dybbuk (n.): "malevolent spirit of a dead person possessing the body of a living one," 1903, from Jewish folklore, from Hebrew dibbuk, from dabak "to cling, cleave to."
dye (n.): Old English deah, deag "a color, hue, tinge," perhaps related to deagol "secret, hidden, dark, obscure," from Proto-Germanic *daugilaz (cognates: Old Saxon dogol "secret," Old High German tougal "dark, hidden, secret").
dye (v.): Old English deagian "to dye," from the source of dye (n.). Spelling distinction between dye and die was not firm till 19c. "Johnson in his Dictionary, spelled them both die, while Addison, his near contemporary, spelled both dye" [Barnhart]. Related: dyed. For dyed in the wool (or grain) see wool (n.).
dyeing: c. 1400, verbal noun and past participle adjective from dye (v.).
dyer (n.): late 14c. (late 13c. as a surname), agent noun from dye (v.).
dying: late 13c., "death," verbal noun from die (v.). From mid-15c. as a past participle adjective, "in the process of becoming dead."
dyke (n.): 1931, American English, perhaps a shortening of morphadike, dialectal garbling of hermaphrodite; but bulldyker "engage in lesbian activities" is attested from 1921, and a source from 1896 lists dyke as slang for "the vulva."
[T]he word appears first in the long forms, bulldiker and bulldyking, both used in the 1920s by American blacks. No African antecedents have been found for the term, however, which leads to the possibility that this is basically just another backcountry, barnyard word, perhaps a combination of BULL and DICK. [Rawson]
dynamic (adj.): 1817 as a term in philosophy; 1827 in the sense "pertaining to force producing motion" (the opposite of static), from French dynamique introduced by German mathematician Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716) in 1691 from Greek dynamikos "powerful," from dynamis "power," from dynasthai "to be able, to have power, be strong enough," which is of unknown origin. The figurative sense of "active, potent, energetic" is from 1856 (in Emerson). Related: Dynamically.