英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

peacock (n.)[peacock 词源字典]: c. 1300, poucock, from Middle English po "peacock" + coc (see cock (n.)).

Po is from Old English pawa "peafowl" (cock or hen), from Latin pavo (genitive pavonis), which, with Greek taos said to be ultimately from Tamil tokei (but perhaps is imitative; Latin represented the peacock's sound as paupulo).

The Latin word also is the source of Old High German pfawo, German Pfau, Dutch pauw, Old Church Slavonic pavu. Used as the type of a vainglorious person from late 14c. Its flesh superstitiously was believed to be incorruptible (even St. Augustine credits this). "When he sees his feet, he screams wildly, thinking that they are not in keeping with the rest of his body." [Epiphanus][peacock etymology, peacock origin, 英语词源]
peahen (n.): c. 1400, from Old English pawa "peafowl" (see peacock) + hen.
peak (n.): "pointed top," 1520s, variant of pike (n.4) "sharp point." Meaning "top of a mountain" first recorded 1630s, though pike was used in this sense c. 1400. Figurative sense is 1784. Meaning "point formed by hair on the forehead" is from 1833. According to OED, The Peak in Derbyshire is older than the word for "mountaintop;" compare Old English Peaclond, for the district, Pecsaetan, for the people who settled there, Peaces ærs for Peak Cavern; sometimes said to be a reference to an elf-denizen Peac "Puck."
peak (v.): 1570s, "to rise in a peak," from peak (n.). Figurative meaning "reach highest point" first recorded 1958. Related: peaked; peaking.
peaked (adj.): "sickly-looking," 1835, from past participle of obsolete verb peak "look sickly or thin, shrink, waste away" (1540s), which is perhaps from peak in sense of "become pointed" through emaciation. Related: Peakedness.
peal (n.): mid-14c., "a ringing of a bell" especially as a call to church service, generally considered a shortened form of appeal (n.), with the notion of a bell that "summons" people to church (compare similar evolution in peach (v.)). Extended sense of "loud ringing of bells" is first recorded 1510s.
peal (v.): 1630s, from peal (n.). Related: Pealed; pealing.
peanut (n.): 1807; see pea + nut. Earlier ground nut, ground pea (1769). The plant is native to South America; Portuguese traders took peanuts from Brazil and Peru to Africa by 1502 and it is known to have been cultivated in Chekiang Province in China by 1573, probably arriving with Portuguese sailors who made stops in Brazil en route to the Orient. Peanut butter attested by 1892; peanut brittle is from 1894. Peanut gallery "topmost rows of a theater" is from 1874, American English; peanuts "trivial sum" is from 1934.
pear (n.): Old English pere, peru "pear," common West Germanic (Middle Dutch, Middle Low German pere, Old High German pira, bira, Dutch peer), from Vulgar Latin *pera, variant of Latin pira, plural (taken for fem. singular) of pirum "pear," a loan word from an unknown source. It likely shares an origin with Greek apion "pear," apios "pear tree."
pearl (n.): mid-13c., from Old French perle (13c.) and directly from Medieval Latin perla (mid-13c.), of unknown origin. Perhaps from Vulgar Latin *pernula, diminutive of Latin perna, which in Sicily meant "pearl," earlier "sea-mussel," literally "ham, haunch, gammon," so called for the shape of the mollusk shells.

Other theories connect it with the root of pear, also somehow based on shape, or Latin pilula "globule," with dissimilation. The usual Latin word for "pearl" was margarita (see margarite).

For pearls before swine, see swine. Pearl Harbor translates Hawaiian Wai Momi, literally "pearl waters," so named for the pearl oysters found there; transferred sense of "effective sudden attack" is attested from 1942 (in reference to Dec. 7, 1941).
pearly (adj.): early 15c., from pearl + -y (2). Related: Pearliness. The pearly gates of Heaven (or the New Jerusalem) are attested by 1708, from Rev. 21:21.
peart (adj.): variant of pert (q.v.).
peasant (n.): early 15c., from Anglo-French paisant (mid-14c.), Old French paisent "local inhabitant" (12c., Modern French paysan), earlier paisenc, from pais "country, region" + Frankish suffix -enc "-ing."

Pais is from Late Latin pagensis "(inhabitant) of the district," from Latin pagus "country or rural district" (see pagan). As a style of garment in fashion (such as peasant blouse) from 1953.
peasantry (n.): 1550s, from peasant + -ry.
pease: Old English; see pea, of which this is the etymologically correct form.
peat (n.): c. 1200, in Scottish Latin, of unknown origin, probably from a Celtic root *pett- (cognates: Cornish peyth, Welsh peth "quantity, part, thing," Old Irish pet, Breton pez "piece"). The earliest sense is not of the turf but of the cut piece of it, and the Celtic root may be connected to that of piece.
peaty (adj.): 1765, from peat + -y (2). Related: Peatiness.
peavey (n.): "pointed cant hook," a lumbering hook, 1878, said to be named for a John Peavey, blacksmith in Bolivar, N.Y., who supposedly invented it c. 1872. Other sources ascribe it to a Joseph Peavey of Stillwater, Maine, and give a date of 1858.
pebble (n.): small, smooth stone, late 13c., from Old English papolstan "pebblestone," of unknown origin. Perhaps imitative. Some sources compare Latin papula "pustule, pimple, swelling."
pecan (n.): 1712, paccan "the pecan tree," or a related hickory, from French pacane, from an Algonquian word meaning "nut" (compare Cree pakan "hard-shelled nut," Ojibwa bagaan, Abenaki pagann, Fox /paka:ni/).