英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

woman [woman 词源字典]: woman: [OE] A woman is etymologically a ‘wife-man’ – that is to say, a ‘female person’. The word was compounded in the Old English period from wīf ‘woman’ (source of modern English wife) and man ‘person’ (source of modern English man). Already by the end of the Old English period the f of wifman was disappearing, giving wiman, and the influence of the w sound started to turn this into woman in the 13th century. Woman did not finally oust the two more ancient words for ‘female person’, wife and the now obsolete quean, until the end of the Middle English period.
=> man, wife[woman etymology, woman origin, 英语词源]
wonder: wonder: [OE] Wonder is something of a mystery word. It is widespread in the Germanic languages (German has wunder, Dutch wonder, Swedish undran, and Danish undren, but its ultimate ancestry is unknown.
wont: wont: see wean
wood: wood: [OE] The ancestral meaning of wood is probably ‘collection of trees, forest’; ‘tree’ (now obsolete) and ‘substance from which trees are made’ are secondary developments. The word goes back to prehistoric Germanic *widuz, which also produced Swedish and Danish ved ‘firewood’, and it has Celtic relatives in Gaelic fiodh ‘wood, woods’, Welsh gwydd ‘trees’, and Breton gwez ‘trees’.

Its ultimate source is not known for certain, although it has been suggested that it may go back to the Indo- European base *weidh- ‘separate’ (source also of English divide and widow). According to this theory, it would originally have denoted a ‘separated’ or ‘remote’ piece of territory, near the outer edge or borders of known land; and since such remote, uninhabited areas were usually wooded, it came to denote ‘forest’ (forest itself may mean etymologically ‘outside area’, and the Old Norse word for ‘forest’, mork, originally signified ‘border area’).
wool: wool: [OE] Wool goes back to Indo-European *wlná, which also produced Latin lāna (source of English lanolin [19]), Czech vlna, Polish wełna, and Welsh gwlān (probable source of English flannel). In prehistoric Germanic it had become *wullō, which evolved into German wolle, Dutch wol, Swedish ull, Danish uld, and English wool.
=> flannel, lanolin
word: word: [OE] Word and verb are closely related. Both go back ultimately to the Indo-European base *wer- ‘speak, say’, which also produced Greek rhétōr ‘public speaker’ (source of English rhetoric), Latvian vārds ‘word’, and Lithuanian vardas ‘name’. Its prehistoric Germanic descendant was *wordam, which has given German wort, Dutch woord, Swedish and Danish ord, and English word.
=> verb
work: work: [OE] Work is at the centre of a small family of English words that go back ultimately to Indo- European *werg-, *worg- ‘do, work’ (other members include energy, organ, and orgy). From this base was formed the noun *wergon, which passed into prehistoric Germanic as *werkam, and evolved from there into German and Dutch werk, Swedish verk, and English work. Wright ‘craftsman’ [OE] (which now survives only in compounds) comes from the same source (with the transposition of r and the vowel), as does wrought, originally the past participle of the verb work.
=> energy, organ, orgy, wright, wrought
world: world: [OE] Etymologically, world means ‘age of man’. That is the basis of its earliest recorded sense, ‘earthly existence, human life’. But already by the 9th century it was being used for the ‘earth’ itself. It is a compound noun formed in the prehistoric Germanic period from *weraz ‘man’ (probable source of the were- of English werewolf and related to virile) and *ald- ‘age’ (ancestor of English old), and its relatives include German welt, Dutch wereld, Swedish verld, and Danish verden.
=> old, virile, werewolf
worm: worm: [OE] The ancestral meaning of worm appears to be ‘snake’; its application to smaller limbless creatures is a secondary development. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic *wurmiz, *wurmaz, which also produced German wurm, Dutch worm, and Danish orm ‘worm’ and Swedish orm ‘snake’. And this in turn went back to Indo-European *wrmi-, *wrmo- (source also of Latin vermis, from which English gets vermilion and vermin), a possible derivative of the base *wer- ‘turn, twist’ (source of English convert, reverse, etc) – in which case the worm would be etymologically the ‘twisting’ or ‘winding’ creature.
=> vermilion, vermin
wormwood: wormwood: see vermouth
worry: worry: [OE] Worry originally meant ‘strangle’. It comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *wurgjan, which also produced German wügen ‘choke, strangle’. The sense ‘harass physically’ (as in ‘dogs worrying sheep’) emerged in the 16th century, via an intermediate ‘seize by the throat’, and the modern sense ‘vex, disturb’ came on the scene in the 17th century, but the verb was not used intransitively until the mid- 19th century.
worse: worse: [OE] Worse goes back to prehistoric Germanic *wersizon. This was a comparative formation based on *wers-, which also produced English war and German wirren ‘confuse’. The superlative worst [OE] came from the same base.
worship: worship: [OE] Worship began life as a compound noun meaning virtually ‘worthiness’. It was formed from the adjective worth and the noun suffix -ship ‘state, condition’, and at first was used for ‘distinction, credit, dignity’. This soon passed into ‘respect, reverence’, but it was not used in specifically religious contexts until the 13th century. The verb dates from the 12th century.
=> worth
worth: worth: [OE] Worth is a general Germanic adjective, with relatives in German wert, Dutch waard, Swedish värd, and Danish værd (worth ‘value’ [OE] is a noun use of the adjective). Its ultimate ancestry is uncertain, although it has been speculated that it may go back to the Indo- European base *wer- ‘turn’, which also produced Latin vertere (source of English convert, version, etc), German werden ‘become’, and the now obsolete English verb worth ‘become’, not to mention English weird and possibly worm. Derived from worth are worship and worthy [13].
=> worship, worthy
would: would: [OE] Would goes back to wold-, the Old English past tense of will. Its vowel is inherited from the Indo-European variant *wol- (as in German wollen ‘will, want’), rather than the *wel- that produced the English present form will. Its use as an auxiliary to form the conditional dates back to the Old English period.
=> will
wound: wound: [OE] Wound is a widespread Germanic word, with relatives in German wunde, Dutch wond, and Icelandic und (Danish vunde is a reborrowing from Low German). Its ultimate origins are uncertain, but it has been speculated that it may go back to an Indo-European base *wen-, which also produced Welsh gwanu ‘stab’.
wrangle: wrangle: see wrong
wrap: wrap: [14] The antecedents of wrap are a mystery. It has no known Germanic relatives, although it is similar to North Frisian wrappe ‘stop up’ and Danish dialect vrappe ‘stuff’. A possible connection has been suggested with Greek ráptein ‘sew, patch’ and Lithuanian verpti ‘spin’.
wreath: wreath: see wrist
wreck: wreck: [13] Wreck goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *wreg-, a variant of which may be responsible for English urge. Its Germanic descendant *wrek- formed the basis of a verb *wrekan ‘drive’. The native English descendant of this is wreak [OE], which originally meant ‘drive out’, and developed its modern meaning via ‘give vent to anger or other violent emotions’. Wreck itself was acquired via Old Norse *wrek and Anglo-Norman wrec, and etymologically it denotes a ship that has been ‘driven’ on to the shore.

A variant of the same base, *wrak-, lies behind English wretch [OE] (etymologically someone ‘driven’ out, an ‘exile’) and also possibly French garçon ‘boy’.
=> urge, wreak, wretch