英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

angel [angel 词源字典]: angel: [12] In a sense, English already had this word in Anglo-Saxon times; texts of around 950 mention englas ‘angels’. But in that form (which had a hard g) it came directly from Latin angelus. The word we use today, with its soft g, came from Old French angele (the ‘hard g’ form survived until the 13th century). The French word was in its turn, of course, acquired from Latin, which adopted it from Greek ángelos or ággelos.

This meant literally ‘messenger’, and its use in religious contexts arises from its being used as a direct translation of Hebrew mal’ākh ‘messenger’, the term used in the scriptures for God’s intermediaries. The Greek word itself may be of Persian origin.
=> evangelist[angel etymology, angel origin, 英语词源]
cadaver: cadaver: [16] Cadaver literally means ‘something that has fallen over’. It is a derivative of the Latin verb cadere ‘fall’ (from which English gets a wide range of other words, from case to accident). Its application to ‘dead body’ arises from the metaphorical use of the Latin verb for ‘die’.
=> accident, cadence, case
caesarian: caesarian: [17] The application of the adjective caesarian to the delivery of a baby by surgical incision through the abdomen and womb arises from the legend that Julius Caesar (c. 100–44 BC) himself or an earlier ancestor of his was born in this way. The name Caesar comes from the Latin phrase a caeso mātrisūtere, literally ‘from the mother’s cut womb’ (caesus was the past participle of the Latin verb caedere ‘cut’, from which English gets concise, incise, precise, etc). The abbreviation caesar for ‘caesarian section’ is mid 20th-century.
=> concise, incise, precise
coast: coast: [13] Latin costa meant ‘rib’ (hence the English medical term intercostal ‘between the ribs’), but also more generally ‘flank, side’. It was in this sense that it passed into Old French as coste, and subsequently into English. The modern meaning ‘seashore’ (which had already developed in Old French) arises from the shore being thought of as the ‘side’ or ‘edge’ of the land (compare seaside).

Amongst the senses of the French word little represented in English is ‘hillside, slope’; it was however adopted in North America for a ‘slope down which one slides on a sledge’, and came to be used in the mid 19th century as a verb meaning ‘sledge down such a slope’. That was the source of the modern verbal sense ‘freewheel’. The coster of costermonger [16] was originally costard, a variety of apple named from its prominent ‘ribs’.

And another hidden relative is cutlet [18], borrowed from French côtelette, literally ‘little rib’.
=> costermonger, cutlet, intercostal
condign: condign: [15] From its virtually exclusive modern use in the phrase condign punishment, condign has come to be regarded frequently as meaning ‘severe’, but etymologically it signifies ‘fully deserved’. It comes via Old French condigne from Latin condignus, a compound adjective formed from the intensive prefix comand dignus ‘worthy’ (source of English dainty, deign, dignity, disdain, and indignant, and related to decent). The collocation with punishment arises from the frequent use of the phrase in Tudor acts of parliament.
=> dainty, decent, deign, dignity, disdain, indignant
control: control: [15] Implausible as it may seem, control’s closest relative in English is contrarotating. It has its origins in a medieval method of checking accounts which involved a duplicate register, or ‘counter-roll’, as it was known (contrārotulus in medieval Latin, contrā meaning ‘opposite’ and rotulus being the diminutive of rota ‘wheel’).

From the medieval Latin noun a verb was formed, contrārotulāre, meaning ‘check accounts by such means’, and hence ‘exert authority’. This passed into English via Anglo-Norman contreroller. The spelling of the agent noun controller as comptroller, still encountered in certain official designations, arises from an erroneous 16th-century association of the first syllable with count, from late Latin computus.
=> rota, rotate
crack: crack: [OE] Old English had the verb cracian ‘make a sudden sharp noise’, but English did not acquire the noun crack until the 14th century. Both are of Germanic origin (modern German has the related krachen, for instance, and Dutch has kraken), and the verb’s hypothetical ancestor can be reconstructed as *krakojan. The notion of ‘sudden sharp noise’ is semantically primary (presumably it was originally onomatopoeic), and the prevalent modern sense ‘fissure’ arises from the connection between the noise of something breaking and the resultant line of fracture.
=> crock
gazette: gazette: [17] If the Sun or the Mirror were called the 22p, they would be echoing the origins of the word gazette. In Renaissance Venice, a ‘newspaper’ was termed casually gazeta de la novita (gazeta for short), literally a ‘pennyworth of news’ – for a gazeta was the name of a small Venetian copper coin (probably a diminutive form of gazza ‘magpie’).

Italian took the word over as gazzetta, and passed it on to English via French. The verbal use of gazette, ‘announce a military promotion officially’, arises from the practice of printing such announcements in the British government newspaper, the London Gazette (first published in the 17th century). The derived gazeteer [17], ultimately from Italian gazzettiere, originally meant ‘journalist’.

Its current sense ‘index of places’ was inspired by Laurence Echard’s The Gazetteer’s; or a Newsman’s Interpreter: Being a Geographical Index 1693.
umbrage: umbrage: [15] Umbrage is one of a group of English words that go back ultimately to Latin umbra ‘shadow’. Indeed, it was originally used for ‘shade, shadow’ in English: ‘the light, and also … the false umbrage which the moon doth show forth’, Betham, Precepts of War 1544. The expression take umbrage ‘take offence’ arises from a metaphorical extension of ‘shadow’ to ‘suspicion’, which took place in French.

The word itself reached English via Old French umbrage from Vulgar Latin *umbrāticum, a noun use of the neuter form of Latin umbrāticus ‘shadowy’, which was derived from umbra. Other English words from the same source include adumbrate [16], penumbra [17], sombre, sombrero, umbel [16], and umbrella.
=> adumbrate, penumbra, sombre, sombrero, umbel, umbrella
act (n.): late 14c., "a thing done," from Old French acte "(official) document," and directly from Latin actus "a doing, a driving, impulse; a part in a play, act," and actum "a thing done," originally a legal term, both from agere "to do, set in motion, drive, urge, chase, stir up," from PIE root *ag- "to drive, draw out or forth, move" (cognates: Greek agein "to lead, guide, drive, carry off," agon "assembly, contest in the games," agogos "leader;" Sanskrit ajati "drives," ajirah "moving, active;" Old Norse aka "to drive;" Middle Irish ag "battle").

Theatrical ("part of a play," 1510s) and legislative (early 15c.) senses of the word also were in Latin. Meaning "display of exaggerated behavior" is from 1928. In the act "in the process" is from 1590s, perhaps originally from the 16c. sense of the act as "sexual intercourse." Act of God "uncontrollable natural force" recorded by 1726.
An act of God is an accident which arises from a cause which operates without interference or aid from man (1 Pars. on Cont. 635); the loss arising wherefrom cannot be guarded against by the ordinary exertions of human skill and prudence so as to prevent its effect. [William Wait, "General Principles of the Law," Albany, 1879]
carminative (adj.): early 15c., from Latin carminat- (past participle stem of carminare "to card," from carmen, genitive carminis, "a card for wool or flax," which is related to carrere "to card;" see card (v.2)) + -ive. As a noun from 1670s.
A medical term from the old theory of humours. The object of carminatives is to expel wind, but the theory was that they dilute and relax the gross humours from whence the wind arises, combing them out like knots in wool. [Hensleigh Wedgwood, "A Dictionary of English Etymology," 1859-65]
fontanelle (n.): also fontanel, 1540s, "hollow between two muscles," from French fontanelle (16c.), from Old French fontenele "small source, fountain, spring; fontanelle," diminutive of fontaine "spring" (see fountain), on analogy of the dent in the earth where a spring arises. In reference to the "hollow" in a baby's skull, it is first recorded 1741.
omohyoid: "Designating a long slender digastric muscle which arises from the upper border of the shoulder blade and passes obliquely along the side and front of the neck to the lower border of the hyoid bone", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in George Viner Ellis (1812–1900). From omo- + hyoid, after omohyoideus.
peroneus longus: "A muscle of the lateral side of the leg which arises from the fibula, inserts on to the cuneiform and first metatarsal bones via a long tendon passing under the foot, and serves to extend the ankle and evert the foot", Late 17th cent. From scientific Latin peroneus longus from post-classical Latin peroneus + classical Latin longus.
profundus: "A deep-seated muscle; specifically the flexor digitorum profundus muscle, which arises from the ulna, flexes the distal phalanges of the fingers, and is situated beneath the muscle which flexes the middle phalanges", Late 17th cent. From classical Latin profundus (originally in post-classical Latin or scientific Latin musculus profundus).
peroneus brevis: "A muscle of the lateral side of the leg that arises from the fibula, inserts on to the fifth metatarsal bone, and acts to evert the foot", Early 18th cent.; earliest use found in James Drake (d. 1707), political and medical writer. From scientific Latin peroneus brevis from post-classical Latin peroneus + classical Latin brevis short.
pyriformis: "A gluteal (buttock) muscle, which arises from the sacrum and the ischium or sacrotuberous ligament and inserts into the greater trochanter of the femur, serving in humans to rotate the thigh laterally", Late 17th cent. From post-classical Latin pyriformis pyriform.
peroneus tertius: "A small muscle of the leg, sometimes absent, that arises from the fibula, inserts on to the fifth metatarsal bone, and acts to dorsiflex and evert the foot", Mid 18th cent. From post-classical Latin peroneus tertius from peroneus + classical Latin tertius third.
popliteus: "A flat muscle at the back of the knee which arises from the lateral condyle of the femur and is inserted into the posterior surface of the tibia, and serves to rotate the tibia on the femur, allowing the fully extended knee to begin flexion", Late 17th cent.; earliest use found in Randle Holme (1627–1700), herald painter. From post-classical Latin popliteus, adjective (in musculus popliteus) from classical Latin poplit-, poples knee joint, back of the knee, hough, of unknown origin + -eus.