quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- Prince Charming




- 1837, from French Roi Charmant, name of the hero of Comtesse d'Aulnoy's "L'Oiseau Bleu" (1697). In English he was adopted into native fairy tales including "Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella."
As for me, I have always agreed with the fairy books that the moment when Prince Charming arrives is the perfect climax. Everything that goes before in the life of a girl simply leads up to that moment, and everything that comes after dates from it; and while the girl of the twentieth century, sallying forth in search of adventure, may not hope to meet at the next turn a knight in shining armor, or a sighing troubadour, she does hope, if she is normal and has the normal dreams of a girl, to find her hero in some of the men who pass her way. [Temple Bailey, "Adventures in Girlhood," Philadelphia, 1919]
- sleeping (adj.)




- c. 1300, past participle adjective from sleep (v.). Sleeping-pill is from 1660s; sleeping-bag is from 1850; sleeping sickness as a specific African tropical disease is first recorded 1875; sleeping has been used since late 14c. for diseases marked by morbid conditions. Sleeping Beauty (1729) is Perrault's La belle au bois dormant.
It is ill wakyng of a sleapyng dogge. [Heywood, 1562]
It is nought good a slepyng hound to wake. [Chaucer, c. 1385]