quword 趣词
            Word Origins Dictionary
         
        
        
     
    - hat trick (n.)    
- in the sports sense, 1879, originally in cricket, "taking three wickets on three consecutive deliveries;" extended to other sports c. 1909, especially ice hockey ("In an earlier contest we had handed Army a 6-2 defeat at West Point as Billy Sloane performed hockey's spectacular 'hat trick' by scoring three goals" ["Princeton Alumni Weekly," Feb. 10, 1941]). So called allegedly because it entitled the bowler to receive a hat from his club commemorating the feat (or entitled him to pass the hat for a cash collection), but the term probably has been influenced by the image of a conjurer pulling objects from his hat (an act attested by 1876). The term was used earlier for a different sort of magic trick:
 
 Place a glass of liquor on the table, put a hat over it, and say, "I will engage to drink every drop of that liquor, and yet I'll not touch the hat." You then get under the table; and after giving three knocks, you make a noise with your mouth, as if you were swallowing the liquor. Then, getting from under the table, say "Now, gentlemen, be pleased to look." Some one, eager to see if you have drunk the liquor, will raise the hat; when you instantly take the glass and swallow the contents, saying, "Gentlemen I have fulfilled my promise: you are all witnesses that I did not touch the hat." ["Wit and Wisdom," London, 1860]
  
- nadir (n.)    
- late 14c., in astronomical sense, from Medieval Latin nadir, from Arabic nazir "opposite to," in nazir as-samt, literally "opposite direction," from nazir "opposite" + as-samt "road, path" (see zenith). Transferred sense of "lowest point (of anything)" is first recorded 1793.
- pleb (n.)    
- 1856 as a colloquial shortening of plebeian in the ancient Roman sense. West Point sense attested by 1851 (see plebe).
- sole (n.1)    
- "bottom of the foot" ("technically, the planta, corresponding to the palm of the hand," Century Dictionary), early 14c., from Old French sole, from Vulgar Latin *sola, from Latin solea "sandal, bottom of a shoe; a flatfish," from solum "bottom, ground, foundation, lowest point of a thing" (hence "sole of the foot"), a word of uncertain origin. In English, the meaning "bottom of a shoe or boot" is from late 14c.
- col    
- "The lowest point of a ridge or saddle between two peaks, typically providing a pass from one side of a mountain range to another", Mid 19th century: from French, literally 'neck', from Latin collum.
- tautochrone    
- "A curve upon which a body moving under gravity or another force will reach the lowest point (or some other fixed point) in the same amount of time, regardless of the point from which it starts", Late 18th cent.; earliest use found in Oliver Goldsmith (?1728–1774), author. From French tautochrone from post-classical Latin tautochronus, adjective from tauto- + ancient Greek χρόνος time.