英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

address [address 词源字典]: address: [14] Address originally meant ‘straighten’. William Caxton, for example, here uses it for ‘stand up straight’: ‘The first day that he was washed and bathed he addressed him[self] right up in the basin’ Golden Legend 1483. This gives a clue to its ultimate source, Latin dīrectum ‘straight, direct’. The first two syllables of this seem gradually to have merged together to produce *drictum, which with the addition of the prefix ad- was used to produce the verb *addrictiāre.

Of its descendants in modern Romance languages, Italian addirizzare most clearly reveals its source. Old French changed it fairly radically, to adresser, and it was this form which English borrowed. The central current sense of ‘where somebody lives’ developed in the 17th and 18th centuries from the notion of directing something, such as a letter, to somebody.
=> direct[address etymology, address origin, 英语词源]
ecclesiastical: ecclesiastical: [15] In classical Greek, an ekklēsíā was an ‘assembly’ (the word was derived from ekkalein, a compound verb formed from the prefix ek- ‘out’ and kallein ‘call’). With the introduction of Christianity, it was adopted as the term for ‘church’, and an ekklēsiastés, originally ‘someone who addressed an assembly’, became a ‘preacher’ or ‘priest’. The derived adjective, ekklēsiastikos, passed into English via either French or Latin.
homily: homily: [14] Etymologically, a homily is a discourse addressed to a ‘crowd of people’. The word comes via Old French omelie and late Latin homīlia from Greek homīlíā ‘discourse’. This was a derivative of hōmílos ‘crowd’, originally a compound noun formed from homou ‘together’ and ílē ‘crowd’. Its moral connotations emerged in the original Greek.
address (v.): early 14c., "to guide or direct," from Old French adrecier "go straight toward; straighten, set right; point, direct" (13c.), from Vulgar Latin *addirectiare "make straight," from Latin ad "to" (see ad-) + *directiare, from Latin directus "straight, direct" (see direct (v.)). Late 14c. as "to set in order, repair, correct." Meaning "to write as a destination on a written message" is from mid-15c. Meaning "to direct spoken words (to someone)" is from late 15c. Related: Addressed; addressing.
Banting (n.): system for weight loss through diet control, named for William Banting (1797-1878), English undertaker who invented it, tested it himself, and promoted it in his 1863 booklet "Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public." Although the word is a surname, it was used like a verbal noun in -ing. ("She is banting").
banzai: Japanese war-cry, 1893, literally "(may you live) ten thousand years," originally a greeting addressed to the emperor, from ban "ten thousand" + sai "year."
brother-in-law (n.): c. 1300; also brother in law; see brother. In Arabic, Urdu, Swahili, etc., brother-in-law, when addressed to a male who is not a brother-in-law, is an extreme insult, with implications of "I slept with your sister."
Ephesians (n.): New Testament epistle, late 14c., addressed to Christian residents of the Ionian Greek city of Ephesus, in what now is western Turkey.
Jack: masc. proper name, 1218, probably an anglicization of Old French Jacques (which was a diminutive of Latin Jacobus; see Jacob), but in English the name always has been associated with Johan, Jan "John," and some have argued that it is a native formation.

Alliterative coupling of Jack and Jill is from 15c. (Ienken and Iulyan). In England, applied familiarly or contemptuously to anybody (especially one of the lower classes) from late 14c. Later used especially of sailors (1650s; Jack-tar is from 1781). In U.S., as a generic name addressed to an unknown stranger, attested from 1889.
morituri te salutant: Latin, literally "those about to die salute you," words addressed to emperor by gladiators upon entering the arena. Third person singular is moriturus te salutat, first person singular is moriturus te saluto.
namby-pamby (adj.): "weakly sentimental, insipidly pretty," 1745, from satiric nickname of English poet Ambrose Philips (1674-1749) mocking his sentimental pastorals addressed to infant members of the nobility. Used first in 1726 in a farce credited to Carey. Related: Namby-pambical.
patent (n.): late 14c., "open letter or document from some authority," shortened form of Anglo-French lettre patent (also in Medieval Latin (litteræ) patentes), literally "open letter" (late 13c.), from Old French patente (see patent (adj.).
The Letters Patent were ... written upon open sheets of parchment, with the Great Seal pendent at the bottom ... [while] the 'Litteræ Clausæ,' or Letters Close, ... being of a more private nature, and addressed to one or two individuals only, were closed or folded up and sealed on the outside. [S.R. Scargill-Bird, "A Guide to the Principal Classes of Documents at the Public Record Office," 1891]
Meaning "a license covering an invention" is from 1580s.
personal (adj.): late 14c., "pertaining to the self," from Old French personal (12c., Modern French personnel), from Late Latin personalis "pertaining to a person," from Latin persona (see person). Meaning "aimed at some particular person" (usually in a hostile manner) first attested 1610s. The noun sense of "newspaper item about private matters" is attested from 1888. As "a classified ad addressed to an individual," it is recorded from 1861. Personal computer is from 1976.
sermocination (n.): 1510s, "a talk," from Latin sermonationem (nominative sermonatio), noun of action from past participle stem of sermonari "talk, discourse, harangue," from sermo (see sermon). From 1753 in rhetoric, "a form of prosopopoeia in which the speaker, having addressed a real or imaginary hearer with a remark or especially a question, immediately answers for the hearer." Related: Sermocinator, agent noun; sermocinatrix "a female talker" (1620s).
signify (v.): late 13c., "be a sign of, indicate, mean," from Old French signifier (12c.), from Latin significare "to make signs, show by signs, point out, express; mean, signify; foreshadow, portend," from significus (adj.), from signum "sign" (see sign (n.)) + root of facere "to make" (see factitious). Intransitive sense of "to be of importance" is attested from 1660s. Meaning "engage in mock-hostile banter" is American English black slang first recorded 1932.
...'signifying,' which in Harlemese means making a series of oblique remarks apparently addressed to no one in particular, but unmistakable in intention in such a close-knit circle. ["Down Beat," March 7, 1968]
stamp (v.): Old English stempan "to pound in a mortar," from Proto-Germanic *stamp- (cognates: Old Norse stappa, Danish stampe, Middle Dutch stampen, Old High German stampfon, German stampfen "to stamp with the foot, beat, pound," German Stampfe "pestle"), from nasalized form of PIE root *stebh- "to support, place firmly on" (cognates: Greek stembein "to trample, misuse;" see staff (n.)). The vowel altered in Middle English, perhaps by influence of Scandinavian forms.

Sense of "strike the foot forcibly downwards" is from mid-14c. The meaning "impress or mark (something) with a die" is first recorded 1550s. Italian stampa "stamp, impression," Spanish estampar "to stamp, print," French étamper (13c., Old French estamper) "to stamp, impress" are Germanic loan-words. Related: Stamped; stamping. To stamp out originally was "extinguish a fire by stamping on it;" attested from 1851 in the figurative sense. Stamping ground "one's particular territory" (1821) is from the notion of animals. A stamped addressed envelope (1873) was one you enclosed in a letter to speed or elicit a reply.
SWAK: acronym for sealed with a kiss, attested from 1911, in a legal publication quoting a letter from 1909:
"... Well Kid I don't know nothing else to say only that I hope to see your sweet face Sat. Good by from your Dear Husban to his sweet little wife. P. S. excuse bad writing and mispelled words take all mistakes as kisses. S.W.A.K. * * *" This letter was postmarked at Des Moines October 20, 1909, addressed to Carrie Sprague at Jefferson, Iowa, and reached the latter place October 21, 1909. [State v. Manning (a conspiracy-to-lure-women-to-prostitution case), Supreme Court of Iowa, Nov. 16, 1910, reported in "Northwestern Reporter," Volume 128, 1911]
Popularized in soldiers' letters home in World War I. It probably is meant also to echo the sound of a kiss. Compare Middle English swack "a hard blow" (late 14c.).
thou (pron.): 2nd nominative singular personal pronoun, Old English þu, from Proto-Germanic *thu (cognates: Old Frisian thu, Middle Dutch and Middle Low German du, Old High German and German du, Old Norse þu, Gothic þu), from PIE *tu-, second person singular pronoun (cognates: Latin tu, Irish tu, Welsh ti, Greek su, Lithuanian tu, Old Church Slavonic ty, Sanskrit twa-m).

Superseded in Middle English by plural form you (from a different root), but retained in certain dialects (e.g. early Quakers). The plural at first was used in addressing superior individuals, later also (to err on the side of propriety) strangers, and ultimately all equals. By c. 1450 the use of thou to address inferiors gave it a tinge of insult unless addressed by parents to children, or intimates to one another. Hence the verb meaning "to use 'thou' to a person" (mid-15c.).
Avaunt, caitiff, dost thou thou me! I am come of good kin, I tell thee! ["Hickscorner," c. 1530]
A brief history of the second person pronoun in English can be found here.