英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

groundsel [groundsel 词源字典]: groundsel: [OE] The -sel of groundsel represents Old English swelgan ‘swallow’ (ancestor of modern English swallow), and if ground- genuinely represents ground, then groundsel would mean etymologically ‘groundswallower’ – presumably a reference to its rapid and invasive growth. However, in early texts the form gundæswelgiæ appears, the first element of which suggests Old English gund ‘pus’. If this is the word’s true origin, it would mean literally ‘pus-swallower’, an allusion to its use in poultices to absorb pus, and groundsel would be a variant introduced through association with ground.
=> swallow[groundsel etymology, groundsel origin, 英语词源]
birdseed (n.): 1736, from bird (n.1) + seed (n.).
Edsel: notoriously unsuccessful make of car, introduced 1956 and named for Henry and Clara Ford's only child; figurative sense of "something useless and unwanted" is almost as old. Edsel is a family name, attested since 14c. (William de Egeshawe), from High Edser in Ewhurst, Surrey.
godsend (n.): "unlooked-for acquisition or good fortune," 1812, earlier "a shipwreck" (from the perspective of people living along the coast), by 1806, from Middle English Godes sonde (c. 1200) "God's messenger; what God sends, gift from God, happening caused by God," from God + Middle English sonde "that which is sent, message," from Old English sand, from sendan (see send (v.)).
The common people in Cornwall call, as impiously as inhumanely, a shipwreck on their shores, "a Godsend." [Rev. William Lisle Bowles, footnote in "The Works of Alexander Pope," London, 1806]
maidservant (n.): 1520s, from maid (n.) + servant.
mindset (n.): also mind-set, "habits of mind formed by previous experience," 1920, in educators' jargon, from mind (n.) + set (v.).
trendsetter (n.): also trend-setter, 1950, from trend (n.) + agent noun from set (v.). Related: Trend-setting.