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aeroplane [aeroplane 词源字典]: aeroplane: [19] The prefix aero- comes ultimately from Greek āér ‘air’, but many of the terms containing it (such as aeronaut and aerostat) reached English via French. This was the case, too, with aeroplane, in the sense of ‘heavier-than-air flying machine’. The word was first used in English in 1873 (30 years before the Wright brothers’ first flight), by D S Brown in the Annual Report of the Aeronautical Society – he refers vaguely to an aeroplane invented by ‘a Frenchman’.

The abbreviated form plane followed around 1908. (An earlier, and exclusively English, use of the word aeroplane was in the sense ‘aerofoil, wing’; this was coined in the 1860s, but did not long survive the introduction of the ‘aircraft’ sense.) Aeroplane is restricted in use mainly to British English (and even there now has a distinctly old-fashioned air). The preferred term in American English is airplane, a refashioning of aeroplane along more ‘English’ lines which is first recorded from 1907.
=> air[aeroplane etymology, aeroplane origin, 英语词源]
anecdote: anecdote: [17] In Greek, anékdotos meant ‘unpublished’. It was formed from the negative prefix an- and ékdotos, which in turn came from the verb didónai ‘give’ (a distant cousin of English donation and date) plus the prefix ek- ‘out’ – hence ‘give out, publish’. The use of the plural anékdota by the 6th-century Byzantine historian Procopius as the title of his unpublished memoirs of the life of the Emperor Justinian, which revealed juicy details of court life, played a major part in the subsequent use of Latin anecdota for ‘revelations of secrets’, the sense which anecdote had when it first came into English.

The meaning ‘brief amusing story’ did not develop until the mid 18th century.
=> date, donation
anemone: anemone: [16] The wild wood anemone is sometimes called the wind flower, and this idea may be reflected in its standard name too. For it comes from Greek anemónē, which appears to be a derivative of ánemos ‘wind’ (also the source of English animal and animate). However, it has also been speculated that the Greek word may be an alteration of Hebrew Na’ amān, which was an epithet applied to Adonis, the beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite from whose blood, according to Greek legend, the anemone sprang after he was killed while boar hunting.

According to this view, anemónē arose from a folk-etymological reformulation of the Hebrew word to make it approximate more closely to the Greek for ‘wind’. The application to sea anemone began in the late 18th century.
=> animal, animate
arcane: arcane: [16] Arcane comes from the Latin adjective arcānus ‘hidden, secret’. This was formed from the verb arcēre ‘close up’, which in turn came from arca ‘chest, box’ (source of English ark). The neuter form of the adjective, arcānum, was used to form a noun, usually used in the plural, arcāna ‘mysterious secrets’.
=> ark
buccaneer: buccaneer: [17] A buccaneer was originally ‘someone who dried meat on a wooden frame over a fire’. The word comes ultimately from mukem, the term for such a frame in the Tupi language of the Caribbean islands, which in the mouths of early French settlers became boucan (the Haitian term was barbacoa, from which we get barbecue). French boucanier thus came to be applied in the 17th century to a woodsman in the West Indies who prepared his food in such a way; such men were fairly lawless, and took to piratical ways, bringing their name with them in the late 17th century.
cane: cane: [14] Cane is a word of ancient ancestry. It can be traced back to Sumerian gin ‘reed’, and has come down to us via Assyrian kanū and Greek kánnā (a derivative of which, kánastron ‘wicker basket’, was the ultimate source of English canister [17]). Latin borrowed the word as canna, and broadened its meaning out from ‘reed, cane’ to ‘pipe’, which is the basis of English cannal, channel, cannon, and canyon. From Latin came Old French cane, source of the English word.
=> canal, canister, cannon, canyon, channel
castanet: castanet: [17] Castanets were originally named in Spanish from their resemblance to the shells of chestnuts, Spanish castañeta being a diminutive form of castaña ‘chestnut’, from Latin castanea (itself the ultimate source of English chestnut). Another name for them in 17th-century English was knackers: ‘Castinettas: knackers of the form of chestnuts, used to this day by the Spaniards in their dances’, Robert Stapylton, Juvenal’s sixteen satires 1647.
=> chestnut
counterpane: counterpane: see quilt
crane: crane: [OE] Crane is a widespread Indo- European bird-name: related forms such as Latin grūs, Greek géranos (source of English geranium, also known as crane’s-bill, from the long pointed ‘beak’ of its fruit), and Welsh garan point to a prehistoric Indo-European base *ger-, possibly imitative of the bird’s raucous call. The resemblance of a crane lowering its long neck to feed or drink to the operation of a lifting apparatus with a long jib led to the application of crane to the latter in the 14th century (French grue and German kran show a similar semantic development). Cranberry [17] is a borrowing (originally American) of German cranbeere, literally ‘craneberry’, so named from the stamens, which supposedly resemble a beak.
=> cranberry, geranium, pedigree
cutaneous: cutaneous: see hide
evanescent: evanescent: see vanish
extraneous: extraneous: see strange
fane: fane: see profane
germane: germane: [19] Germane is an alteration of german ‘closely related’ [14], which now survives only in the rather archaic expression cousin-german. This came via Old French germain from Latin germānus, which meant ‘of the same race’ (it was a derivative of germen ‘sprout, offspring’, from which English gets germ). The use of germane for ‘relevant’ as opposed to simply ‘related’ seems to have been inspired by Hamlet’s comment that a remark of Osric’s would have been ‘more german to the matter, if we could carry cannon by our sides’. (The nationality term German [16], incidentally, is probably of Celtic origin, and has no etymological connection with germane.)
=> germ
hurricane: hurricane: [16] European voyagers first encountered the swirling winds of the hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and they borrowed a local word to name it – Carib huracan. This found its way into English via Spanish. (An early alternative form was furacano, which came from a Carib variant furacan.)
mane: mane: [OE] Mane goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *manō, which also produced German mähne and Dutch mane. Related forms such as Swedish manke ‘neck’, Irish muin ‘nape of the neck’, archaic Welsh mwn ‘neck’, Latin monīle ‘necklace’, and Sanskrit manyā- ‘nape of the neck’ suggest that historically ‘neck’ is the primary, ‘neck-hair’ a secondary meaning of this word-family. It has been speculated that it goes back ultimately to Indo-European *men- ‘project’ (source of English eminent, prominent, etc).
manganese: manganese: see magnet
miscellaneous: miscellaneous: see mix
panel: panel: [13] Etymologically, a panel is nothing more than a ‘small pane’. It comes via Old French from Vulgar Latin *pannellus, a diminutive form of Latin pannus ‘rag’ (source of English pane [13]). Both panel and pane entered English with their original ‘cloth’ connotations intact, but they have now virtually died out, surviving only in the compound counterpane (which is actually an alteration of an earlier counterpoint), and ‘shape’ has taken over from ‘substance’ as the word’s key semantic feature.
=> pane
permanent: permanent: see remain
plane: plane: English has five distinct planes, four of which are essentially the same word as plain. These come ultimately from Latin plānus, but preserve its ‘flat’ meanings rather than (like plain) its ‘clear’ meanings. Plane ‘flat surface’ [17] comes from Latin plānum, a noun use of the neuter form of the adjective; it is the plane from which aeroplane, and hence its abbreviation plane, were formed. Plane ‘carpenter’s smoothing tool’ [14] comes via Old French plane from late Latin plāna, a derivative of the verb plānāre ‘make level’, itself a derivative of plānus. Plane ‘flat’ [17] is an alteration of plain, on the model of French plan ‘flat’.

And plane ‘glide, soar’ [17] comes from French planer, a derivative of plan ‘level surface’ (the underlying notion being of a bird soaring with level wings). The odd man out is plane the tree-name [14], which comes via Old French plane and Latin platanus from Greek plátanos, a derivative of platús ‘broad’ (source of English place, plaice, and platypus) – the reference being to its broad leaves. Platanus probably also underlies English plantain, as applied to the banana-like vegetable.
=> piano, plain; place, plaice, plantain, plate, platypus
planet: planet: [12] A planet is etymologically a ‘wanderer’. The word comes via Old French planete and late Latin planēta from Greek planétos, a derivative of the verb planasthai ‘wander’. This was applied to any heavenly body that appeared to move or ‘wander’ across the skies among the fixed stars, which in ancient astronomy included the sun and moon as well as Mars, Venus, etc. The modern application to a ‘body that orbits the sun (or similar star)’ dates from the mid 17th century.
profane: profane: [15] Anything that is profane is etymologically ‘outside the temple’ – hence, ‘secular’ or ‘irreligious’. The word comes via Old French prophane from Latin profānus, a compound adjective formed from the prefix prō- ‘before’ (used here in the sense ‘outside’) and fānum ‘temple’ (source of archaic English fane [14]).
=> fane
ranee: ranee: see raj
sane: sane: [17] Latin sānus, a word of uncertain origin, meant ‘healthy’ – a connotation perpetuated in its derivative sanatorium ‘sickroom’ [19]. Its use with reference to mental rather than physical health (as in the Latin tag mēns sāna in corpore sāno ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’) led to its adoption in English for ‘of sound mind, not mad’.
=> sanatorium, sanitary
simultaneous: simultaneous: see similar
vane: vane: [15] Vane is an alteration of an earlier fane ‘flag, weather-cock’, which was descended from Old English fana. This in turn came from a prehistoric Germanic *fanon. The change from fane to vane took place in southwest England, where initial f and s have a tendency to become v and z (as in zyder for cyder).
wane: wane: [OE] Wane and Norwegian vana ‘spoil, waste’ are the only survivors of a family of Germanic verbs that goes back to a prehistoric *wanōjan. This was derived from the base *wan- ‘lacking’, which also produced English want. The related but now defunct English adjective wane ‘lacking’ is represented in the first syllable of wanton.
=> want, wanton
-ane: word-forming element in chemical use, indicating a chain of carbon atoms with no double bonds, proposed 1866 by German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818-1892) to go with -ene, -ine (2), -one.
aeroplane (n.): 1866, from French aéroplane (1855), from Greek aero- "air" (see air (n.1)) + stem of French planer "to soar," from Latin planus "level, flat" (see plane (n.1)). Originally in reference to surfaces (such as the protective shell casings of beetles' wings); meaning "heavier than air flying machine" first attested 1873, probably an independent English coinage (see airplane).
airplane (n.): 1907, from air (n.1) + plane (n.1); though the original references are British, the word caught on in American English, where it largely superseded earlier aeroplane (1873 in this sense and still common in British English). Aircraft "airplane" also is from 1907. Lord Byron, speculatively, used air-vessel (1822).
alkanet (n.): "dye material from bugloss plant roots," early 14c., from Spanish alcaneta, diminutive of alcana, from Arabic al-hinna (see henna). As the name of the plant itself, from 1560s.
anear (adv.): "nearly," c. 1600, from a- (1) + near.
anecdotage (n.): "anecdotes collectively," 1823, from anecdote + -age. As a jocular coinage meaning "garrulous old age" it is recorded from 1835, and led to anecdotard.
anecdotal (adj.): 1794, from anecdote + -al (1). Related: Anecdotally. Anecdotical is attested from 1744.
anecdote (n.): 1670s, "secret or private stories," from French anecdote (17c.) or directly from Greek anekdota "things unpublished," neuter plural of anekdotos, from an- "not" (see an-) + ekdotos "published," from ek- "out" + didonai "to give" (see date (n.1)).

Procopius' 6c. Anecdota, unpublished memoirs of Emperor Justinian full of court gossip, gave the word a sense of "revelation of secrets," which decayed in English to "brief, amusing stories" (1761).
anechoic (adj.): 1948, in electronics, from an- (1) "not" + echoic.
anemia (n.): alternative (chiefly U.S.) spelling of anaemia (q.v.). See ae. As a genus of plants, Modern Latin, from Greek aneimon "unclad," from privative prefix an- (see an- (1)) + eima "a dress, garment" (see wear (v.)).
anemic (adj.): alternative (chiefly U.S.) spelling of anaemic (q.v.). See ae.
anemo-: before vowels anem-, word-forming element meaning "wind," from comb. form of Greek anemos (see anemone).
anemometer (n.): 1727, from anemo- "wind" + -meter.
anemone (n.): flowering plant genus, 1550s, from Middle French anemone (16c.) and directly from Latin anemone, from Greek anemone "wind flower," literally "daughter of the wind," from anemos "wind" (cognate with Latin anima; see animus) + -one feminine patronymic suffix. According to Asa Gray, so called because it was thought to open only when the wind blows. Klein suggests the flower name perhaps originally is from Hebrew (compare na'aman, in nit'e na'amanim, literally "plants of pleasantness," in Is. xvii:10, from na'em "was pleasant"). Applied to a type of sea creature (sea anemone) from 1773.
anencephalic (adj.): "having no brain" (biology), 1839, from Greek anenkephalos, from privative prefix an- (see an- (1)) + enkephalos "brain" (see encephalitis) + -ic.
anent (prep.): "concerning, about," early 13c., onont "on level with," also "in the company of, fronting against," from Old English on efn "near to, close by," originally "on even (ground) with;" the parasitic -t added 12c. A northern form (in Midlands, anenst, with adverbial genitive), affected by English writers in Scottish sense of "in respect or reference to." Compare German neben "near to, by the side of," short for in eben, from Old High German ebani "equality."
anesthesia (n.): alternative spelling of anaesthesia (q.v.). See ae.
anesthesiologist (n.): alternative spelling of anaesthesiologist (q.v.). See ae.
anesthesiology (n.): alternative spelling of anaesthesiology (q.v.). See ae.
anesthetic (adj.): alternative spelling of anaesthetic (q.v.). See ae.
anesthetist (n.): alternative spelling of anaesthetist (q.v.). See ae.
anesthetize (v.): alternative spelling of anaesthetize (q.v.). See ae.