英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

affront [affront 词源字典]: affront: [14] The present-day notion of ‘insulting someone’ has replaced the more direct action of hitting them in the face. Affront comes, via Old French afronter, from Vulgar Latin *affrontāre ‘strike in the face’, which was formed from the Latin phrase ad frontem, literally ‘to the face’.
=> front[affront etymology, affront origin, 英语词源]
aileron: aileron: see aisle
anachronism: anachronism: [17] The Greek prefix anameant ‘up’, and hence, in terms of time, ‘back’; Greek khrónos meant ‘time’ (as in English chronicle): hence Greek anakhronismós ‘reference to a wrong time’. From the point of view of its derivation it should strictly be applied to the representation of something as happening earlier than it really did (as if Christ were painted wearing a wristwatch), but in practice, ever since the Greek term’s adoption into English, it has also been used for things surviving beyond their due time.
=> chronicle
apron: apron: [14] As in the case of adder, umpire, and many others, apron arose from a mistaken analysis of the combination ‘indefinite article + noun’. The original Middle English word was napron, but as early as the 15th century a napron had turned into an apron. Napron itself had been borrowed from Old French naperon, a derivative of nape ‘cloth’ (source of English napery and napkin); and nape came from Latin mappa ‘napkin, towel’ (source of English map).
=> map, mat, napkin
astronomy: astronomy: [13] Astronomy comes via Old French and Latin from Greek astronomíā, a derivative of the verb astronomein, literally ‘watch the stars’. Greek ástron and astér ‘star’ (whence English astral [17] and asterisk [17]) came ultimately from the Indo-European base *ster-, which also produced Latin stella ‘star’, German stern ‘star’, and English star.

The second element of the compound, which came from the verb némein, meant originally ‘arrange, distribute’. At first, no distinction was made between astronomy and astrology. Indeed, in Latin astrologia was the standard term for the study of the stars until Seneca introduced the Greek term astronomia. When the two terms first coexisted in English (astrology entered the language about a century later than astronomy) they were used interchangeably, and in fact when a distinction first began to be recognized between the two it was the opposite of that now accepted: astrology meant simply ‘observation’, whereas astronomy signified ‘divination’.

The current assignment of sense was not fully established until the 17th century.
=> asterisk, astral, star
baron: baron: [12] The earliest historical sense of baron, ‘tenant under the feudal system who held his land and title directly from the king’, can be traced back to its probable source, medieval Latin barō, which originally meant simply ‘man’, and hence ‘vassal’ or ‘retainer’. The word was of course brought into English by the Normans, as Anglo-Norman barun, and from earliest times was used as a title for someone belonging to the lowest order of peerage. Some have suggested an ultimate Germanic origin, and compared Old High German baro ‘freeman’.
bronze: bronze: [18] Until the 18th century, copper alloys were lumped together under the general term brass. Bronze seems originally to have been introduced as a specialist term for ancient artefacts made from the metal, but the modern distinction tends to be between brass (alloy of copper and zinc) and bronze (cooper and tin). The word comes via French from Italian bronzo, but its ultimate source is not clear.

Perhaps the likeliest candidate is Persian birinj, pirinj ‘copper’, but it has also been speculated that it comes via medieval Greek brontésion from medieval Latin aes brundisium, literally ‘brass of Brindisi’, a port on the Adriatic coast of Italy where in antiquity bronze mirrors were made.
cauldron: cauldron: [13] Etymologically, cauldrons are for heating not food but people. The word comes ultimately from Latin calidārium ‘hot bath’, which was a derivative of the adjective calidus ‘warm’ (related to English calorie, and, by a much more circuitous route, lee ‘sheltered area’ and probably lukewarm). Among the descendants of calidārium were late Latin caldāria ‘pot’, which produced French chaudière (possible source of English chowder) and Vulgar Latin *caldario, which passed into Anglo-Norman, with a suffix indicating great size, as caudron ‘large cooking pot’.

In English, the l was reintroduced from Latin in the 15th century.
=> calorie, chowder, nonchalant
chaperon: chaperon: [14] A chaperon was originally a ‘hood’. The word comes from Old French chaperon, a derivative of chape, whose variant cape was the source of English cape, and goes back ultimately to late Latin cappa ‘hood, cloak’. The word’s modern sense, ‘companion safeguarding propriety’, which first appears in English in the 18th century, arose from the general notion of a ‘hood’ as something that gives protection.
=> cape
chronicle: chronicle: [14] English has a number of words derived from Greek khrónos ‘time’, among them chronology [16], chronometer ‘timepiece’ [18], and crony. And from its adjective kronikós ‘of time’ comes English chronic [15], by way of Latin chronicus, which in medieval times picked up the medical connotations which characterize the word today.

Greek bíblia khroniká meant ‘books about time’; hence khroniká came to be used on its own for ‘historical records’, passing via Latin chronica and Old French chronique to Anglo-Norman, where it acquired a new ending, cronicle. English took it over, and restored the Latin ch- spelling in the 16th century.
=> anachronism, chronic, chronology
coronary: coronary: [17] Coronary comes from Latin coronārius, an adjectival derivative of corōna ‘garland, crown’. It was applied in the later 17th century to any anatomical structure, such as an artery, nerve, or ligament, that encircles another like a crown. A leading example of such a conformation is the heart, with its encircling blood vessels, and gradually coronary came to be used for ‘of the heart’.

Its application as a noun to ‘heart attack’ appears to be post-World War II. Other English descendants of Latin corōna (which came from Greek korónē ‘something curved’) include coronation [14], the diminutive coronet [15], coroner [14], originally an ‘officer of the crown’, crown, and of course corona [16] itself.
=> corollary, coronation, coroner, crown
crone: crone: [14] Crone has a rather macabre history. Essentially it is the same word as carrion. It began life in Latin carō ‘flesh’, which had a Vulgar Latin derivative *carōnia ‘carcass’. In Old Northern French this became carogne, which was applied metaphorically to a withered old woman (English carrion comes from the Anglo-Norman form caroine). Middle Dutch borrowed the word as croonje, applying it additionally to old ewes, and passed it on to English.
=> carrion
crony: crony: [17] Crony originated as a piece of Cambridge university slang. Originally written chrony, it was based on Greek khrónios ‘longlasting’, a derivative of khrónos ‘time’ (source of English chronicle, chronology, chronic, etc), and seems to have been intended to mean ‘friend of long-standing’, or perhaps ‘contemporary’. The first recorded reference to it is in the diary of Samuel Pepys, a Cambridge man: ‘Jack Cole, my old school-fellow … who was a great chrony of mine’, 30 May 1665.
=> chronic, chronicle, chronology
effrontery: effrontery: [18] The notion of ‘audacity’ or ‘impudence’ is often expressed in terms of ‘exposing or pushing forward the face’: a ‘barefaced lie’ or ‘putting on a bold front’, for instance. And effrontery is no exception. It comes ultimately from late Latin effrōns ‘barefaced, shameless’, a compound adjective formed from the prefix ex- ‘out of’ and frōns ‘forehead’ (source of English front).

This seems subsequently to have been reformulated along the lines of its original components, giving Vulgar Latin *exfrontātus, source of Old French esfronte. This in turn developed to French effronté, whose derived noun effronterie was acquired by English as effrontery.
=> front
front: front: [13] As its close French relative front still does, front used to mean ‘forehead’. Both come from Latin frōns, a word of dubious origins whose primary meaning was ‘forehead’, but which already in the classical period was extending figuratively to the ‘most forwardly prominent part’ of anything. In present-day English, only distant memories remain of the original sense, in such contexts as ‘put up a brave front’ (a now virtually dead metaphor in which the forehead, and hence the countenance in general, once stood for the ‘demeanour’).

The related frontier [14], borrowed from Old French frontiere, originally meant ‘front part’; its modern sense is a secondary development.
=> frontier
frontispiece: frontispiece: [16] The final syllable of frontispiece has no etymological connection with piece. It comes from *spic-, a root denoting ‘see’ which is also represented in conspicuous and spectator. Here, as in the related auspices, its particular application is ‘divination by observation’. Added to Latin frōns ‘forehead’ it produced late Latin frontispicium, which originally meant ‘judgment of character through interpretation of facial features’.

Gradually it weakened semantically through ‘face’ to simply ‘front part’, and when English first acquired it, it was used for the ‘principal façade of a building’ (‘an indiscreet builder, who preferreth the care of his frontispiece before the maine foundation’, Richard Brathwait, English Gentleman 1630). By the 17th century, however, the word’s modern meaning ‘illustration facing the title page’ was becoming established. (Spellings based on an erroneous association with piece, incidentally, occur as early as the 16th century.)
=> auspices, conspicuous, front, inspect, spectator, spy
heron: heron: [OE] Heron may well have originated in imitation of the bird’s cry, for its source was probably Indo-European *qriq- (whence also Russian krichat’ ‘call out, shout’). From this was descended prehistoric Germanic *khaigaron (source of Swedish häger ‘heron’), which was borrowed into Old French as hairon. English took it over as heron or hern (the latter now a memory surviving in personal names and placenames, such as Earnshaw).
iron: iron: [OE] Iron is probably a Celtic contribution to English, but the borrowing took place in the prehistoric period, before the Germanic dialects separated, and so English shares the word with German (eisen), Dutch (ijzen), Swedish (järn), etc. The prehistoric Celtic form from which these all ultimately came was *īsarnon, which some have linked with Latin aes ‘bronze’ and Sanskrit isira- ‘strong’. The ancient Indo- European peoples had already split up into groups speaking mutually unintelligible tongues by the time iron came into general use, so there was never any common Indo-European term for it.
irony: irony: [16] Irony has no etymological connection with iron. It comes via Latin īrōnia from Greek eirōneíā, which signified ‘deliberately pretending ignorance, particularly as a rhetorical device to get the better of one’s opponent in argument’. This was a derivative of eírōn ‘dissembler’, which in turn came from the verb eírein ‘say’. This original sense of ‘dissimulation’ survives in the expression Socratic irony, a reference to Socrates’ use of such feigned ignorance as a pedagogical method, but it has been overtaken as the main sense of the word by ‘saying the opposite of what one means’.
macaroni: macaroni: [16] Macaroni was the earliest of the Italian pasta terms to be borrowed into English, and so it now differs more than any other from its original. When English acquired it, the Italian word was maccaroni (it came ultimately from late Greek makaría ‘food made from barley’), but now it has become maccheroni. The colloquial 18th-century application of macaroni to a ‘dandy’ is thought to have been an allusion to such people’s supposed liking for foreign food.

And the derivative macaronic [17], used for a sort of verse in which Latin words are mixed in with vernacular ones for comic effect, was originally coined in Italian, comparing the verse’s crude mixture of languages with the homely hotchpotch of a macaroni dish. Macaroon [17] comes from macaron, the French descendant of Italian maccaroni.
=> macaroon
patron: patron: [14] Patron is one of a large group of English words descended from pater, the Latin member of the Indo-European family of ‘father’- words (which also includes English father). Among the others are paternal [17], paternity [15], paternoster [OE] (literally ‘our father’), patrician [15], and patrimony [14]. Patron itself comes from Latin patrōnus, a derivative of pater which was used for ‘one who protects the interests of another, as a father does’.

By postclassical times it had acquired its current meanings, including that of a ‘guardian saint’. Pattern is ultimately the same word as patron. The Greek branch of the ‘father’-family is represented by patér, from which English gets patriarch [12], patriot [16] (based ultimately on the notion of a ‘fatherland’), and patronymic [17].
=> father, paternal, pattern, patrician, patriot
pronounce: pronounce: [14] Latin nuntius meant ‘messenger’. From it was derived the verb nuntiāre ‘announce’, which has formed the basis of English announce [15], annunciation [14], denounce [13], pronounce, and renounce [14]. Pronounce itself goes back to Latin prōnuntiāre ‘proclaim’, formed with the prefix prō- ‘forth, out, in public’. Its specific application to the ‘way in which a person speaks’ emerged in English in the early 17th century.
=> announce, denounce, nuncio, renounce
pronto: pronto: see prompt
rhododendron: rhododendron: [17] A rhododendron is etymologically a ‘rose-tree’. The term comes from Greek rhodódendron, a compound formed from rhódon ‘rose’ (apparently a relative of English rose) and déndron ‘tree’ (source of English dendrite [18] and dendrochronology [20]). This denoted the ‘oleander’, an application it retained through Latin rhododendron into English. The first record of its use for the plant we now know as the rhododendron dates from the mid 17th century.
=> rose
rondo: rondo: see round
saffron: saffron: [13] Saffron brought its name with it along the spice route from the Middle East. It comes from Arabic za‘farān, a word of unknown origin, and reached English via medieval Latin safranum and Old French safran. The town of Saffron Walden in Essex is so named from its once thriving saffron-growing industry.
squadron: squadron: [16] A squadron is etymologically a ‘square’. The current sense ‘military group’ comes from an earlier ‘square formation of troops’. The word was borrowed from Italian squadrone, a derivative of squadra ‘square’, which comes from the same source as English square. The related squad [17] comes from French escouade, an alteration of escadre, which was acquired from Italian squadra.
=> quarter, square
strong: strong: [OE] Strong comes from a prehistoric Germanic *stranggaz (its immediate Germanic siblings have now died out, but German streng ‘severe’ is quite closely related). It went back ultimately to a base denoting ‘stiffness’ or ‘tautness’, which also produced English string.
=> string
strontium: strontium: [19] The element strontium gets its name from the Strontian area of the Highland region of Scotland, which contains lead mines in which strontium was first discovered. Indeed, it was originally called strontian; the latinized version strontium was introduced by the chemist Sir Humphry Davy in 1808.
throng: throng: [13] The etymological notion underlying throng is of ‘pressing together’. It was borrowed from Old Norse throng ‘crowd’, which went back ultimately to the prehistoric Germanic base *thringg- ‘press’ (source also of German drang ‘crowd, pressure’ and dringen ‘press’). Amongst its non-Germanic relatives is Old Persian thraxta- ‘closely-packed’.
wrong: wrong: [OE] Etymologically, wrong probably means ‘twisted’. It was borrowed into late Old English from Old Norse *vrangr ‘awry’ (rangr is the recorded form), which was descended from prehistoric Germanic *wrangg- (source also of English wrangle [14]). A variant of the same base, *wrengg-, produced English wring [OE].
=> wrangle, wring
Aaron: masc. proper name, in the Old Testament the brother of Moses, from Hebrew Aharon, probably of Egyptian origin. The Arabic form is Harun. Aaron's beard as a type of herb is from 1540s.
Acheron: 1580s, fabled river of the Lower World in Greek mythology. The name perhaps means "marsh-like" (compare Greek akherousai "marshlike water"); the derivation from Greek akhos "woe" is considered folk etymology.
acronym (n.): word formed from the first letters of a series of words, 1943, American English coinage from acro- + -onym "name" (abstracted from homonym; see name (n.)). But for cabalistic esoterica and acrostic poetry, the practice was practically non-existent before 20c. For distinction of usage (not maintained on this site), see initialism.
Adirondack (adj.): 1906, in reference to a type of lawn or deck chair said to have been designed in 1903 by a Thomas Lee, owner of the Westport Mountain Spring, a resort in the Adirondack region of New York State, and commercially manufactured the following year, but said originally to have been called Westport chair after the town where it was first made. Adirondack Mountains is a back-formation from Adirondacks, treated as a plural noun but really from Mohawk (Iroquoian) adiro:daks "tree-eaters," a name applied to neighboring Algonquian tribes, in which the -s is an imperfective affix.
aeronautics (n.): 1824, from aeronautic (1784), from French aéronautique, from aéro- (see aero-) + nautique "of ships," from Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos (see nautical). Originally of balloons. Also see -ics. Aeronaut "balloonist" is from 1784.
affront (v.): early 14c., from Old French afronter "to face, confront, to slap in the face" (13c.), from Late Latin affrontare "to strike against," from Latin ad frontem "to the face," from ad (see ad-) + frons (genitive frontis) "forehead, front" (see front (n.)). Related: Affronted; affronting.
affront (n.): 1590s, from affront (v.).
agronomy (n.): "science of land management for crop production," 1814, from French agronomie, from Greek agronomos "overseer of land," from agros "field" (see acre) + -nomos "law or custom, administering," related to nemein "manage" (see numismatic). Related: Agronomist; agronomic.
aileron (n.): 1909, from French aileron, altered (by influence of aile "wing"), from French aleron "little wing," diminutive of Old French ele "wing" (12c.), from Latin ala "wing" (see aisle).
aldosterone (n.): isolated 1953, named with -one + elements of aldehyde, sterol.
anachronism (n.): 1640s, "an error in computing time or finding dates," from Latin anachronismus, from Greek anakhronismos, from anakhronizein "refer to wrong time," from ana- "against" (see ana-) + khronos "time" (see chrono-). Meaning "something out of harmony with the present" first recorded 1816.
anachronistic (adj.): 1775; see anachronism + -istic.
andiron (n.): c. 1300, from Old French andier, which is of unknown origin, perhaps from Gaulish *andero- "a young bull" (cognates: Welsh anner "heifer"), which would make sense if they once had bull's heads cast onto them. Altered by influence of Middle English iren (see iron (n.)).
andron (n.): men's apartment in a house, from Greek andron, collateral form of andronitis "men's apartment," from aner (genitive andros) "man" (see anthropo-).
apron (n.): mid-15c., faulty separation (as also in adder, umpire) of a napron (c. 1300), from Old French naperon "small table-cloth," diminutive of nappe "cloth," from Latin mappa "napkin." Napron was still in use as recently as late 16c. The shift of Latin -m- to -n- was a tendency in Old French (conter from computare, printemps from primum, natte "mat, matting," from matta). Symbolic of "wife's business" from 1610s. Apron-string tenure was in reference to property held in virtue of one's wife, or during her lifetime only.
Even at his age, he ought not to be always tied to his mother's apron string. [Anne Brontë, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," 1848]
archaeoastronomy (n.): 1971, from archaeo- + astronomy.
arrondissement (n.): 1807, "administrative subdivision of a French department," from French, literally "a rounding," from stem of arrondir "to make round," from a- "to" (see ad-) + rond "round" (see round (adj.)).
astronaut (n.): coined 1929 in science fiction, popularized from 1961 by U.S. space program, from astro- + nautes "sailor" (see naval). French astronautique (adj.) had been coined 1927 by "J.H. Rosny," pen name of Belgian-born science fiction writer Joseph Henri Honoré Boex (1856-1940) on model of aéronautique, and Astronaut was used in 1880 as the name of a fictional spaceship by English writer Percy Greg (1836-1889) in "Across the Zodiac."
astronautics (n.): 1929, see astronaut + -ics.