quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- promenade




- promenade: [16] Promenade was borrowed from French. It was a derivative of se promener ‘go for a walk’, which came from late Latin prōmināre ‘drive forward’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix prō- ‘forward’ and mināre ‘drive’. It was originally used in English for a ‘leisurely walk’; ‘place for walking’ followed in the mid-17th century, but it does not seem to have been applied specifically to a ‘walk-way by the sea’ until the end of the 18th century. The abbreviation prom dates from the early 20th century. The term promenade concert originated in the 1830s.
- promenade (n.)




- 1560s, "leisurely walk," from Middle French promenade (16c.), from se promener "go for a walk," from Late Latin prominare "to drive (animals) onward," from pro- "forth" (see pro-) + minare "to drive (animals) with shouts," from minari "to threaten" (see menace (n.)).
Meaning "place for walking" is 1640s; specifically "walkway by the sea" late 18c.; British sense of "music hall favored by 'loose women and the simpletons who run after them'" is attested from 1863. Sense of "dance given by a school" is from 1887. - promenade (v.)




- "to make a promenade," 1580s, from promenade (n.). Related: Promenaded; promenading.
- Promethean (adj.)




- 1580s, from Prometheus + -an. Before the introduction of modern matches (see lucifer), promethean was the name given (early 19c.) to small glass tubes full of sulphuric acid, surrounded by an inflammable mixture, which ignited when pressed and gave off light.
- Prometheus




- demigod (son of the Titan Iapetus) who made man from clay and stole fire from heaven and taught mankind its use, for which he was punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where a vulture came every day and preyed on his liver. The name is Greek, and anciently was interpreted as literally "forethinker, foreseer," from promethes "thinking before," from pro- "before" (see pro-) + *methos, related to mathein "to learn," from enlargement of PIE root *men- "to think" (see mind (n.)). However Watkins suggests the second element is possibly from a base meaning "to steal," also found in Sanskrit mathnati "he steals."
- promethium (n.)




- radioactive element, long one of the "missing elements," 1948, so called by discoverers Jacob Marinsky and Lawrence Glendenin, who detected it in 1945 in the fusion products of uranium while working on the Manhattan Project. From Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and was punished for it, + element name ending -ium. "The name not only symbolizes the dramatic way in which the element may be produced in quantity as a result of man's harnessing of the energy of nuclear fission, but also warns man of the impending danger of punishment by the vulture of war." [Marinsky and Glendenin]