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depth [depth 词源字典]: depth: [14] Depth is not as old as it looks. Similar nouns, such as length and strength, existed in Old English, but depth, like breadth, is a much later creation. In Old English the nouns denoting ‘quality of being deep’ were dīepe and dēopnes ‘deepness’.
=> deep[depth etymology, depth origin, 英语词源]
deputy: deputy: [16] A deputy is literally ‘someone who has been deputed to act on someone else’s behalf’. It represents a reformulation of the Middle English noun depute. This was borrowed from the past participle of Old French deputer (source of the English verb depute [15] and hence of deputation [16]), which in turn came from late Latin dēputāre ‘assign, allot’.

In classical times this meant literally ‘cut off’ (it was a compound verb formed from the prefix dē- ‘off’ and putāre, which meant ‘cut’ – as in amputate – as well as ‘esteem, consider, reckon, think’ – as in compute, dispute, impute, and repute).
=> amputate, compute, count, dispute, impute, putative, repute
derive: derive: [14] Like rival, derive comes ultimately from Latin rīvus ‘stream’. This was used as the basis of a verb dērīvāre, formed with the prefix dē- ‘away’, which originally designated literally the ‘drawing off of water from a source’. This sense was subsequently generalized to ‘divert’, and extended figuratively to ‘derive’ (a metaphor reminiscent of spring from). English acquired the word via Old French deriver.
=> rival
derrick: derrick: [16] Around the end of the 16th century there was a famous Tyburn hangman called Derick. His name came to be used as a personification of hangmen in general, and subsequently as a metaphor for the ‘gallows’. Gradually, however, these macabre associations were lost, and by the 18th century derrick had progressed in meaning to ‘hoisting apparatus’.
derring-do: derring-do: [16] Derring-do arose from a misunderstanding of the Middle English phrase dorring do, which literally meant ‘daring to do’ (dorren was the Middle English form of dare). In some 16th-century editions of medieval authors this was misprinted as derring do. The poet Edmund Spenser came across it and used it several times in his often deliberately archaic verse – but as a noun, meaning ‘boldness’, rather than as the verbal phrase it actually was: ‘a man of mickle name, renowned much in arms and derring do’, Faerie Queene 1596. Spenser’s usage was picked up and popularized by Sir Walter Scott in the early 19th century.
=> dare
descant: descant: [14] Etymologically, descant is a parallel formation to English part song. English acquired it via Old French deschant from medieval Latin discantus ‘refrain’, a compound noun formed from the prefix dis- ‘apart’ and cantus ‘song’. The notion originally underlying it is of a separate vocal line ‘apart’ from the main musical theme. The Middle English form of the word was deschaunt; descant represents a partial 16th-century reversion to Latin discantus.
=> canto, chant
descend: descend: [13] Etymologically, descend means ‘climb down’. Like its opposite, ascend [14], it comes ultimately from Latin scandere ‘climb’, which also produced English scan and scansion and is related to echelon, escalate, scale ‘set of graduated marks’, scandal, and slander. The Latin verb was a product of the Indo-European base *skand- ‘jump’.
=> ascend, echelon, escalate, scale, scan, scandal, slander
describe: describe: [15] To describe something is literally to ‘write it down’. The word comes from Latin dēscrībere, a compound verb formed from the prefix dē- ‘down’ and scrībere ‘write’ (source of English scribe, script, etc). English originally borrowed it via Old French descrivre in the 13th century as descrive, in which the metaphorical sense ‘give an account of’ had already developed, and this was grafted on to the Latin verb when it was reborrowed directly in the 15th century. The derivative nondescript was coined (originally as a term in biological classification) in the 17th century.
=> ascribe, scribe, script
desert: desert: English has three distinct words desert, which come from two separate sources. Desert ‘what one deserves’ [13] (now usually used in the plural) is related, as its meaning suggests, to the verb deserve. It comes from Old French desert or deserte, which were formed from the past participle of deservir ‘deserve’. (Dessert ‘sweet course’ [17] is its first cousin, coming from French desservir ‘clear the table’ – literally ‘unserve’ – a compound verb formed, like deserve, from the verb serve but with the prefix dis- rather than de-.) The noun desert ‘barren region’ [13] and the verb desert ‘abandon’ [15] both come ultimately from dēsertus, the past participle of Latin dēserere ‘abandon’.

This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dē- denoting reversal and serere ‘join’ (a derivative of which gave English ‘serried ranks’).
=> serve; serried
deserve: deserve: [13] Latin dēservīre meant ‘serve well or enthusiastically’ (it was a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix dē- and servīre ‘serve’). Hence in late Latin it came to mean ‘become entitled to because of meritorious service’, a sense which passed via Old French deservir into English. The more general modern English ‘be worthy of’ developed in the 15th century.
=> serve
desiccate: desiccate: see sack
design: design: [16] The semantic history of design is a little complicated. It comes ultimately from the past participle of Latin dēsignāre ‘mark out’ (source also of English designate [15]), a compound verb formed from the prefix dē- ‘out’ and signāre ‘mark’, a derivative of signum ‘sign’. But English acquired it largely via French, in which a three-way split of form and meaning had taken place.

In both respects désigner ‘point out, denote’ remains closest to the original Latin, but this use of the word has now died out in English, having been taken over by designate. This has left the field open to the metaphorical use ‘plan’, represented in French on the one hand by dessein ‘purpose, intention’ and on the other by dessin ‘pattern, drawing’ and its related verb dessiner.

They represent the two main areas of meaning covered by the word in modern English, although English has stuck to the more latinate spelling.
=> designate, sign
desire: desire: [13] The underlying etymological meaning of desire is something of a mystery. Like consider, it comes ultimately from a base related to Latin sīdus ‘star’, but the links in the semantic chain that would lead us back from ‘desire’ to ‘star’ have not all been successfully reconstructed. It does at least seem, though, that before the word denoted ‘wanting’, it signified ‘lack’. English acquired it via Old French desirer, but has also gone back directly to the past participle of Latin dēsīderāre for desideratum ‘something desirable’ [17].
=> consider, sidereal
desist: desist: see statue
desk: desk: [14] Desk, disc, dish, and dais – strange bedfellows semantically – form a little gang of words going back ultimately, via Latin discus, to Greek dískos ‘quoit’. Desk seems perhaps the least likely descendant of ‘quoit’, but it came about like this: Latin discus was used metaphorically, on the basis of its circular shape, for a ‘tray’ or ‘platter, dish’; and when such a tray was set on legs, it became a table. (German tisch ‘table’ comes directly from Vulgar Latin in this sense.) By the time English acquired it from medieval Latin it seems already to have developed the specialized meaning ‘table for writing or reading on’.
=> dais, disc, dish
desolate: desolate: see sole
despair: despair: [14] Etymologically, despair is literally ‘lack of hope’. The word comes via Old French desperer from Latin dēspērāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix dē-, denoting reversal, and spērāre, a derivative of the noun spēs ‘hope’. Its past participle, dēspērātus, produced English desperate [15], from which desperado is a 17th-century mock-Spanish coinage.
=> desperate
despond: despond: [17] Latin had a phrase animam dēspondēre, literally ‘give up one’s soul’, hence ‘lose heart’. The verb dēspondēre came to be used on its own in this sense, and was borrowed thus by English. It was a compound verb, formed from the prefix dē- ‘away’ and spondēre ‘promise’ (source of English sponsor, spontaneous, spouse, respond, and riposte), and originally meant ‘promise to give away’, hence ‘give up’.
=> respond, riposte, sponsor, spontaneous, spouse
despot: despot: [16] The ultimate source of despot is Greek despótēs ‘lord’. It is related to Sanskrit dampati ‘master of the house’, and both probably go back to an Indo-European compound formed from *domo- ‘house’ (source of Latin domus ‘house’, and hence of English domestic) and another element related to Latin potis ‘able’ and English power. (Latin dominus ‘lord’, a derivative of domus ‘house’ and originally meaning ‘master of the house’, is a semantically parallel formation.) Greek despótēs was used for ‘lord, master’ or ‘ruler’ in various contexts, with no particular pejorative connotation (in modern Greek it means ‘bishop’).

But most rulers in ancient times enjoyed absolute power, and so eventually the word (which entered English via medieval Latin despota and early modern French despot) came to mean ‘tyrannical ruler’; this sense became firmly established at the time of the French Revolution.
=> domestic, dominion
dessert: dessert: see desert