quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- husting




- husting: [11] In the late Old English period, a husting was a sort of deliberative assembly or council summoned by the king. The word was borrowed from Old Norse hústhing, literally ‘house assembly’, which denoted a council consisting of members of the king’s immediate household, rather than a general assembly (thing, which is the same word as modern English thing, is represented in modern Scandinavian languages by ting or thing ‘parliament, court’).
In the 12th century the word came to be used for a court of law held in London’s Guildhall, which for many centuries was the City of London’s senior court, and in the 17th century it is recorded as meaning the ‘platform at the upper end of the Guildhall’, on which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen sat during sessions of the court. In the early 18th century this was transferred metaphorically to the ‘platform on which candidates stood to address electors’, and subsequently it was widened to include the whole ‘election proceedings’.
=> house, thing - thing




- thing: [OE] The ancestral meaning of thing is ‘time’: it goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *thingam, which was related to Gothic theihs ‘time’, and may come ultimately from the Indo- European base *ten- ‘stretch’ (source of English tend, tense, etc). In Germanic it evolved semantically via ‘appointed time’ to ‘judicial or legislative assembly’.
This was the meaning it originally had in English, and it survives in other Germanic languages (the Icelandic parliament is known as the Althing, literally ‘general assembly’). In English, however, it moved on through ‘subject for discussion at such an assembly’ to ‘subject in general, affair, matter’ and finally ‘entity, object’. (The ancient meaning ‘assembly’ is preserved in fossilized form in English husting, etymologically a ‘house assembly’).
=> husting - firecracker (n.)




- also fire-cracker, "exploding paper cylinder," 1830, American English coinage for what is in England a cracker, but the U.S. word distinguishes it from the word meaning "biscuit." See fire (n.) + agent noun from crack (v.).
Sec 2 And be it enacted, That it shall not be lawful for any person to burn, explode or throw any burning fire cracker, squib, turpentine balls or fire serpents in this state. [act of the General Assembly of the state of New Jersey, Feb. 18, 1835]
- fundamentalist (adj.)




- 1920 in the religious sense, from fundamental + -ist. Coined in American English to name a movement among Protestants c. 1920-25 based on scriptural inerrancy, etc., and associated with William Jennings Bryan, among others. The original notion might have been of "fundamental truths."
Fundamentalism is a protest against that rationalistic interpretation of Christianity which seeks to discredit supernaturalism. This rationalism, when full grown, scorns the miracles of the Old Testament, sets aside the virgin birth of our Lord as a thing unbelievable, laughs at the credulity of those who accept many of the New Testament miracles, reduces the resurrection of our Lord to the fact that death did not end his existence, and sweeps away the promises of his second coming as an idle dream. It matters not by what name these modernists are known. The simple fact is that, in robbing Christianity of its supernatural content, they are undermining the very foundations of our holy religion. They boast that they are strengthening the foundations and making Christianity more rational and more acceptable to thoughtful people. Christianity is rooted and grounded in supernaturalism, and when robbed of supernaturalism it ceases to be a religion and becomes an exalted system of ethics. [Curtis Lee Laws, "Herald & Presbyter," July 19, 1922]
Fundamentalist is said (by George McCready Price) to have been first used in print by Curtis Lee Laws (1868-1946), editor of "The Watchman Examiner," a Baptist newspaper. The movement may have roots in the Presbyterian General Assembly of 1910, which drew up a list of five defining qualities of "true believers" which other evangelicals published in a mass-circulation series of books called "The Fundamentals." A World's Christian Fundamentals Association was founded in 1918. The words reached widespread use in the wake of the contentious Northern Baptist Convention of 1922 in Indianapolis. In denominational use, fundamentalist was opposed to modernist. Applied to other religions since 1956 (earliest extension is to the Muslim Brotherhood).
A new word has been coined into our vocabulary -- two new words -- 'Fundamentalist' and 'Fundamentalism.' They are not in the dictionaries as yet -- unless in the very latest editions. But they are on everyone's tongue. [Address Delivered at the Opening of the Seminary, Sept. 20, 1922, by Professor Harry Lathrop Reed, "Auburn Seminary Record"]
- thing (n.)




- Old English þing "meeting, assembly, council, discussion," later "entity, being, matter" (subject of deliberation in an assembly), also "act, deed, event, material object, body, being, creature," from Proto-Germanic *thingam "assembly" (cognates: Old Frisian thing "assembly, council, suit, matter, thing," Middle Dutch dinc "court-day, suit, plea, concern, affair, thing," Dutch ding "thing," Old High German ding "public assembly for judgment and business, lawsuit," German Ding "affair, matter, thing," Old Norse þing "public assembly"). The Germanic word is perhaps literally "appointed time," from a PIE *tenk- (1), from root *ten- "stretch," perhaps on notion of "stretch of time for a meeting or assembly."
The sense "meeting, assembly" did not survive Old English. For sense evolution, compare French chose, Spanish cosa "thing," from Latin causa "judicial process, lawsuit, case;" Latin res "affair, thing," also "case at law, cause." Old sense is preserved in second element of hustings and in Icelandic Althing, the nation's general assembly.
Of persons, often pityingly, from late 13c. Used colloquially since c. 1600 to indicate things the speaker can't name at the moment, often with various meaningless suffixes (see thingamajig). Things "personal possessions" is from c. 1300. The thing "what's stylish or fashionable" is recorded from 1762. Phrase do your thing "follow your particular predilection," though associated with hippie-speak of 1960s is attested from 1841.