No matching word found in the dictionary.


Word of Random

stillyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[still 词源字典]
still: The adjective still ‘not moving’ [OE] comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *stillja or *stellja, which also produced German still and Dutch stil. It was derived from the base *stel- ‘fixed, not moving, standing’ (a variant of which lies behind English stalemate and stall). It was used as an adverb in the Old English period, denoting ‘not changing physical position’, and this gradually evolved metaphorically via ‘never changing or stopping, always’ to (in the 16th century) ‘until now’.

The noun still ‘distilling apparatus’ [16] is of course a different word. It comes from the now defunct verb still ‘distil’. This was short for distil [14], which came from Latin distillāre, a derivative ultimately of the noun stilla ‘drop’ (source also of English instil [16]).

=> stalemate, stall; distil, instil[still etymology, still origin, 英语词源]