quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- analyze (v.)




- c. 1600, "to dissect," from French analyser, from analyse (see analysis). Literature sense is attested from 1610s; meaning in chemistry dates from 1660s. General sense of "to examine closely" dates from 1809; psychological sense is from 1909. Related: Analyzed; analyzing.
- askance (adv.)




- 1520s, "sideways, asquint," of obscure origin. OED has separate listings for askance and obsolete Middle English askance(s) and no indication of a connection, but Barnhart and others derive the newer word from the older one. The Middle English word, recorded early 14c. as ase quances and found later in Chaucer, meant "in such a way that; even as; as if;" and as an adverb "insincerely, deceptively." It has been analyzed as a compound of as and Old French quanses (pronounced "kanses") "how if," from Latin quam "how" + si "if."
The E[nglish] as is, accordingly, redundant, and merely added by way of partial explanation. The M.E. askances means "as if" in other passages, but here means, "as if it were," i.e. "possibly," "perhaps"; as said above. Sometimes the final s is dropped .... [Walter W. Skeat, glossary to Chaucer's "Man of Law's Tale," 1894]
Also see discussion in Leo Spitzer, "Anglo-French Etymologies," Philological Quarterly 24.23 (1945), and see OED entry for askance (adv.) for discussion of the mysterious ask- word cluster in English. Other guesses about the origin of askance include Old French a escone, from past participle of a word for "hidden;" Italian a scancio "obliquely, slantingly;" or that it is a cognate of askew. - complex (adj.)




- 1650s, "composed of parts," from French complexe "complicated, complex, intricate" (17c.), from Latin complexus "surrounding, encompassing," past participle of complecti "to encircle, embrace," in transferred use, "to hold fast, master, comprehend," from com- "with" (see com-) + plectere "to weave, braid, twine, entwine," from PIE *plek-to-, from root *plek- "to plait" (see ply (v.1)). The meaning "not easily analyzed" is first recorded 1715. Complex sentence is attested from 1881.
- jewelry (n.)




- late 14c., juelrye "precious ornaments, jewel work," from Old French juelerye, from jouel (see jewel). In modern use it can be analyzed as jewel + -ery or jeweler + -y (1). Also jewellery.
The longer is the commercial & popular form, the shorter the rhetorical & poetic. [Fowler]
- Orwellian (adj.)




- 1950 (first attested in Mary McCarthy), from English author George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Blair, 1903-1950), especially in reference to his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Ironically, it has come to be used in reference to the totalitarian systems he satirized.
It is as if George Orwell had conceived the nightmare instead of analyzed it, helped to create it instead of helping to dispel its euphemistic thrall. [Clive James]
- praseodymium (n.)




- rare metallic element, 1885, coined in Modern Latin by discoverer Carl Auer von Welsbach (1858-1929) from Greek prasios "leek-green" (from prason "leek") + didymos "double," the name given to an earth in 1840, so called because it was a "twin" to lanthana. When didymia was further analyzed in the 1880s, it was found to have several components, one of which was characterized by green salts and named accordingly, with the elemental suffix -ium.
- psychoanalyze (v.)




- also psycho-analyse, psychoanalyse, 1911; see psycho- + analyze. Related: Psychoanalyzed; psychoanalyzing. Earlier was psychologize (1830).