英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

bamboo [bamboo 词源字典]: bamboo: [16] Bamboo appears to come from a Malay word mambu. This was brought back to Europe by the Portuguese explorers, and enjoyed a brief currency in English from the 17th to the 18th century. However, for reasons no one can explain, the initial m of this word became changed to b, and it acquired an s at the end, producing a form found in Latin texts of the time as bambusa. This appears to have passed into English via Dutch bamboes, so the earliest English version of the word was bambos. As so often happens in such cases, the final s was misinterpreted as a plural ending, so it dropped off to give the new ‘singular’ bamboo.
[bamboo etymology, bamboo origin, 英语词源]
bamboozle: bamboozle: [18] Bamboozle is a mystery word. It first appears in 1703, in the writings of the dramatist Colly Cibber, and seven years later it was one of a list of the latest buzzwords cited by Jonathan Swift in the Tatler (others included bully, mob, and sham). It is probably a ‘cant’ term (a sort of low-life argot), and may perhaps be of Scottish origin; there was a 17th-century Scottish verb bombaze ‘perplex’, which may be the same word as bombace, literally ‘padding, stuffing’, but metaphorically ‘inflated language’ (the variant form bombast has survived into modern English).
=> bombast
tambourine: tambourine: [16] Tambourine is one of a small family of English words that go back ultimately to Persian tabīr ‘drum’. This found its way via Provençal tabor and Old French tabour into English as tabor ‘small drum’ [13]. The Persian word was adopted into Arabic, where it was swallowed up by the similar-sounding tambūr ‘lute’ – so that tambūr now meant ‘drum’. This was borrowed into Old French as tambour, and passed on to English as tambour [15]. Tambourine comes from a French diminutive form.
=> tabor
bamboo (n.): 1590s, from Dutch bamboe, from Portuguese bambu, earlier mambu (16c.), probably from Malay samambu, though some suspect this is itself an imported word.
bamboozle (v.): 1703, originally a slang or cant word, perhaps Scottish from bombaze "perplex," related to bombast, or French embabouiner "to make a fool (literally 'baboon') of." Related: Bamboozled; bamboozling. As a noun from 1703.
Cambodia: from Kambu, legendary ancestor of the people. Related: Cambodian.
dreamboat (n.): "romantically desirable person," 1947, from dream (n.) + boat (n.). "When My Dream Boat Comes Home" was the title of a 1936 song credited to Guy Lombardo.
flamboyance (n.): 1849, from flamboyant + -ance. Related: Flamboyancy (1846).
flamboyant (adj.): 1832, originally in reference to a 15c.-16c. architectural style with wavy, flame-like curves, from French flamboyant "flaming, wavy," present participle of flamboyer "to flame," from Old French flamboiier "to flame, flare, blaze, glow, shine" (12c.), from flambe "a flame, flame of love," from flamble, variant of flamme, from Latin flammula "little flame" (see flame (n.)). Extended sense of "showy, ornate" is from 1879. Related: Flamboyantly.
framboise (n.): 1570s, from French framboise "raspberry" (12c.), usually explained as a corruption (by influence of French fraise "strawberry") of Dutch braambezie (cognate with German brombeere "blackberry," literally "bramble-berry"). "But some French scholars doubt this" [OED].
gamboge (n.): type of gum-resin from Southeast Asia, used in Europe as a yellow dye and as a purgative in medicine, 1630, in widely varying spellings, from Modern Latin cambogium, ultimately from the source of the place name Cambodia.
gambol (n.): "frolic, merrymaking," 1590s, earlier gambolde "a skipping, a leap or spring" (1510s), from Middle French gambade (15c.), from Late Latin gamba "horse's hock or leg," from Greek kampe "a bending" (on notion of "a joint"), from PIE *kamp- "to bend" (see campus). Ending altered perhaps by confusion with formerly common ending -aud, -ald (as in ribald).
gambol (v.): "skip about in sport," 1580s; earlier gambade (c. 1500), from Middle French gambader, from gambade (see gambol (n.)). Compare Middle English gambon "a ham" (see gammon); English dialectal gammerel "small of the leg;" gamble "a leg." Related: Gamboled; gamboling; gambolling.
hambone (n.): also ham-bone, 1771, "bone of a ham," from ham (n.1) + bone (n.). Meaning "inferior actor or performer" is from 1893, an elaboration of ham (n.2).
jamboree (n.): 1866, represented as typical of American English, perhaps from jam (n.) on pattern of shivaree [Barnhart]. For the second element, Weekley suggests French bourree, a kind of rustic dance. Klein thinks the whole thing is of Hindu origin (but he credits its introduction to English, mistakenly, to Kipling). Boy Scouts use is from 1920. Noted earlier as a term in cribbage:
Jamboree signifies the combination of the five highest cards, as, for example, the two Bowers [jacks], Ace, King, and Queen of trumps in one hand, which entitles the holder to count sixteen points. The holder of such a hand, simply announces the fact, as no play is necessary; but should he play the hand as a Jambone, he can count only eight points, whereas he could count sixteen if he played it, or announced it as a Jamboree. ["The American Hoyle," New York, 1864]
mambo (n.): popular dance (like the rhumba but livelier), September 1948, from American Spanish mambo, said by Webster to be from Haitian creole word for "voodoo priestess."
Rambo: used allusively from 1985, in reference to John Rambo, hero of David Morrell's novel "First Blood" (1972), popularized as portrayed by Sylvester Stallone in Hollywood movie version (1982), a U.S. Vietnam veteran, "macho and self-sufficient, and bent on violent retribution" [OED]. The family name is an old one in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, originally Swedish, sometimes said to represent Swedish place name Ramberget, or to be from French Huguenots who took refuge in Sweden.
sambo (n.2): stereotypical name for male black person (now only derogatory), 1818, American English, probably a different word from sambo (n.1); like many such words (Cuffy, Rastus, etc.) a common personal name among U.S. blacks in the slavery days (first attested 1704 in Boston), probably from an African source, such as Foulah sambo "uncle," or a similar Hausa word meaning "second son."

It could be used without conscious racism or contempt until circa World War II. When the word fell from polite usage, collateral casualties included the enormously popular children's book "The Story of Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman), which is about an East Indian child, and the Sambo's Restaurant chain, a U.S. pancake-specialty joint originally opened in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1957 (the name supposedly from a merging of the names of the founders, Sam Battistone and Newell "Bo" Bohnett, but the chain's decor and advertising leaned heavily on the book), which once counted 1,200 units coast-to-coast. Civil rights agitation against it began in 1970s and the chain collapsed, though the original restaurant still is open. Many of the defunct restaurants were taken over by rival Denny's.
sambo (n.1): "person of mixed blood in America and Asia," 1748, perhaps from Spanish zambo "bandy-legged," probably from Latin scambus "bow-legged," from Greek skambos. Used variously in different regions to indicate some mixture of African, European, and Indian blood; common senses were "child of black and Indian parentage" and "offspring of a black and a mulatto."
shambolic (adj.): 1961, apparently from shamble in the sense "disorder" (see shambles), perhaps on model of symbolic.
steamboat (n.): 1787, from steam + boat (n.).
tambourine (n.): 1782, in the modern sense of "parchment-covered hoop with pieces of metal attached;" earlier "a small drum" (1570s), from French tambourin "long narrow drum used in Provence," diminutive of tambour "drum," altered by influence of Arabic tunbur "lute," from Old French tabour (see tabor).

The sense evolutions present some difficulties, and in some 17c. and early 18c. references it is difficult to say what sort of instrument is intended. Earlier names for this type of instrument were tambour de basque (1680s), also timbre and timbrel. Tambour itself is attested in English from late 15c., and Shakespeare has tabourine.
Zamboni (n.): proprietary name of a machine used to resurface ice skating rinks, 1957, trademark of Frank J. Zamboni & Co., Paramount, Calif.