英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

advice: advice: [13] Like modern French avis, advice originally meant ‘opinion’, literally ‘what seems to one to be the case’. In Latin, ‘seem’ was usually expressed by the passive of the verb vidēre ‘see’; thus, vīsum est, ‘it seems’ (literally ‘it is seen’). With the addition of the dative first person pronoun, one could express the notion of opinion: mihi vīsum est, ‘it seems to me’.

It appears either that this was partially translated into Old French as ce m’est a vis, or that the past participle vīsum was nominalized in Latin, making possible such phrases as ad (meum) vīsum ‘in (my) view’; but either way it is certain that a(d)- became prefixed to vīs(um), producing a new word, a(d)vis, for ‘opinion’.

It was originally borrowed into English without the d, but learned influence had restored the Latin spelling by the end of the 15th century. As to its meaning, ‘opinion’ was obsolete by the mid 17th century, but already by the late 14th century the present sense of ‘counsel’ was developing. The verb advise [14] probably comes from Old French aviser, based on avis.
=> vision, visit
aegis: aegis: [18] The notion of ‘protection’ contained in this word goes back to classical mythology, in which one of the functions or attributes of the Greek god Zeus (and later of Roman Jupiter or Minerva) was the giving of protection. This was usually represented visually as a shield, traditionally held to be made of goatskin – hence Greek aigís, the name of the shield, came to be associated in the popular imagination with aix (aig- in its stem form), the Greek word for ‘goat’. English borrowed the word directly from Latin.
aisle: aisle: [15] The original English form of this word was ele. It was borrowed from Old French, which in turn took it from Latin āla ‘wing’ (the modern French form of the word, aile, has a diminutive form, aileron ‘movable control surface on an aircraft’s wing’ [20], which has been acquired by English). Besides meaning literally ‘bird’s wing’, āla was used metaphorically for ‘wing of a building’, which was the source of its original meaning in English, the ‘sides of the nave of a church’.

The Latin word comes from an unrecorded *acsla, which is one of a complex web of ‘turning’ words that include Latin axis, Greek axon ‘axis’, Latin axilla ‘armpit’ (whence English axillary and axil), and English axle. The notion of an aisle as a detached, separate part of a building led to an association with isle and island which eventually affected Middle English ele’s spelling.

From the 16th to the 18th century the word was usually spelled ile or isle. A further complication entered the picture in the 18th century in the form of French aile, which took the spelling on to today’s settled form, aisle.
=> aileron, axis
alabaster: alabaster: [14] Chaucer was the first English author to use the word alabaster: in the Knight’s Tale (1386) he writes of ‘alabaster white and red coral’. It comes, via Old French and Latin, from Greek alábast(r)os, which may be of Egyptian origin. Scottish English used the variant from alabast until the 16th century (indeed, this may predate alabaster by a few years); and from the 16th to the 17th century the word was usually spelled alablaster, apparently owing to confusion with arblaster ‘crossbowman’.

The use of alabaster for making marbles (of the sort used in children’s games) gave rise to the abbreviation alley, ally ‘marble’ in the early 18th century.
arsenic: arsenic: [14] The term arsenic was originally applied to the lemon-yellow mineral arsenic trisulphide, and its history reveals the reason: for its appears to be based ultimately on Persian zar ‘gold’ (related forms include Sanskrit hari ‘yellowish’, Greek khlōros ‘greenish-yellow’, and English yellow itself). The derivative zarnīk was borrowed into Arabic as zernīkh, which, as usual with Arabic words, was perceived by foreign listeners as constituting an indivisible unit with its definite article al ‘the’ – hence azzernīkh, literally ‘the arsenic trisulphide’.

This was borrowed into Greek, where the substance’s supposed beneficial effects on virility led, through association with Greek árrēn ‘male, virile’, to the new forms arrenikón and arsenikón, source of Latin arsenicum and, through Old French, of English arsenic. The original English application was still to arsenic trisulphide (orpiment was its other current name), and it is not until the early 17th century that we find the term used for white arsenic or arsenic trioxide.

The element arsenic itself was isolated and so named at the start of the 19th century.
=> chlorine, yellow
badminton: badminton: [19] The game of ‘battledore and shuttlecock’ has been around for some time (it appears to go back to the 16th century; the word battledore, which may come ultimately from Portuguese batedor ‘beater’, first turns up in the 15th century, meaning ‘implement for beating clothes when washing them’, but by the 16th century is being used for a ‘small racket’; while shuttlecock, so named because it is hit back and forth, first appears in the early 16th century, in a poem of John Skelton’s).

This was usually a fairly informal, improvised affair, however, and latterly played mainly by children; the modern, codified game of badminton did not begin until the 1860s or 1870s, and takes its name from the place where it was apparently first played, Badminton House, Avon, country seat of the dukes of Beaufort. (A slightly earlier application of the word badminton had been to a cooling summer drink, a species of claret cup.)
bodice: bodice: [16] Originally, bodice was identical with bodies – that is, the plural of body. This use of body began early in the 16th century, when it referred to the part of a woman’s dress that covered the trunk, as opposed to the arms; and it soon became restricted specifically to the part above the waist. The reason for the adoption of the plural form (which was often used originally in the phrase pair of bodies) was that the upper portion of women’s dresses was usually in two parts, which fastened down the middle. In the 17th and 18th centuries the term bodice was frequently applied to ‘corsets’.
=> body
caterwaul: caterwaul: [14] The earliest known use of this word comes in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue 1386: ‘If the cat’s skin be slick and grey, forth she will, ere any day be dawned, to show her skin, and go a-caterwauling’. The first element of the word is generally accepted to be cat, while the second (in Middle English it was usually -wawe or -wrawe) is presumably onomatopoeic, imitating the sound of a cat wailing or yowling. It is not clear whether it was a purely native creation, or whether English borrowed it from Low German katerwaulen (where kater means ‘tom cat’).
Celsius: Celsius: [19] The notion of a temperature scale based on 100 was developed by the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–44) (he originally had water boiling at zero and freezing at 100º, but this was later reversed). His name began to be used to designate the scale in English around the middle of the 19th century. In popular parlance it has usually taken a back seat to centigrade (a French invention, first recorded in English in 1812), but it remains the preferred term in scientific usage.
chamelion: chamelion: [14] Etymologically, a chamelion is a ‘ground lion’. The word comes from Greek khamailéōn, a compound formed from khamaí ‘on the ground’ (English humus and humble are related to it) and léōn ‘lion’. Until the 19th century the word was usually spelled camelion, which led to popular association of the first element with camel; this is turn encouraged an identification with camelopard, a now obsolete word for ‘giraffe’, and in the 14th and 15th centuries camelion was used for ‘giraffe’.
=> humble, humus, lion
cinder: cinder: [OE] Despite the similarity of form and meaning, cinder has no etymological connection with French cendre (which comes from Latin cinis ‘ashes’, and is thus related to English incinerate and cineraria, a plant so named because of the grey down on its leaves). It is a Germanic word, related to German sinter ‘deposit formed by evaporation’ (itself borrowed into English in the 18th century), and from Old English times until the 16th century was usually spelled with an initial s-; the c- is an adoption from French cendre.

The name of the fairy-tale character Cinderella is a translation and adaptation of French cendrillon, originally a generic term for any downtrodden kitchen maid who spent much of her time among the cendres of the hearth.
contrary: contrary: [14] Contrary originated as a Latin adjectival formation based on the preposition contrā ‘against’, which historically was a derivative of com or cum ‘with’. Latin contrārius passed into English via Old French contraire and Anglo-Norman contrarie. Originally contrary was pronounced with the main stress on its middle syllable, but this survives only in the sense ‘obstinately self-willed’; from the 18th century onwards, the stress has usually been placed on the first syllable.
cringe: cringe: [13] Like crank, cringe appears to come ultimately from a prehistoric Germanic base *krank- whose original meaning was ‘bend’ or ‘curl up’. This produced an Old English verb crincan ‘fall in battle, yield’ (the association of ‘curling up’ and ‘dying’ is obvious), probable ancestor of modern English crinkle [14]. Crincan does not itself seem to be the source of cringe, which until the 16th century was usually spelled crenge or crench; to explain these eforms it is necessary to postulate *crencean, an unrecorded Old English causative derivative of crincan, meaning ‘cause to curl up’.
=> crank, crinkle
discreet: discreet: [14] Discreet and discrete [14] are ultimately the same word. Both come from Latin discrētus, the past participle of discernere ‘distinguish’ (source of English discern). Discrete was borrowed direct from Latin, and retains its original meaning more closely: ‘distinct, separate’. The Latin abstract noun formed from the past participle, discrētiō (source of English discretion [14]), developed the sense ‘power to make distinctions’.

This fed back into the adjective, giving it the meaning ‘showing good judgment’, the semantic guise in which English acquired it from Old French discret. This was usually spelled discrete too until the 16th century, when discreet (based on the -ee- spelling commonly used in words like sweet and feet which rhymed with discrete) became the established form for the more widely used sense ‘judicious’.
=> certain, discern, discrete, secret
July: July: [13] July was the month in which Julius Caesar was born. Originally in ancient Rome it was called Quintilis, literally ‘fifth month’ (the Roman year began in March), but after the death and deification of Caesar its name was changed in his honour. Latin Jūlius passed into English via Anglo-Norman julie, and until the 18th century the word was usually pronounced to rhyme with truly (as the related woman’s name Julie still is).
ketchup: ketchup: [17] Ketchup is a Chinese word in origin. In the Amoy dialect of southeastern China, kôechiap means ‘brine of fish’. It was acquired by English, probably via Malay kichap, towards the end of the 17th century, when it was usually spelled catchup (the New Dictionary of the Canting Crew 1690 defines it as ‘a high East- India Sauce’). Shortly afterwards the spelling catsup came into vogue (Jonathan Swift is the first on record as using it, in 1730), and it remains the main form in American English. But in Britain ketchup has gradually established itself since the early 18th century.
prestige: prestige: [17] As opponents of semantic change are fond of pointing out, prestige once meant ‘trick, illusion’, and its use until the 19th century was usually derogatory. It comes via French prestige from Latin praestigiae ‘illusions produced by a conjurer or juggler’, an alteration of an unrecorded *praestrigiae. This would have been a derivative of praestringere ‘blindfold’, hence ‘confuse the sight, dazzle’, a compound verb formed from the prefix prae- ‘before’ and stringere ‘bind’ (source of English strict). The modern approbatory meaning appears to have been reintroduced from French.
=> strict
Anthony: masc. proper name, from Latin Antonius, name of a Roman gens (with excrescent -h- probably suggested by many Greek loan words beginning anth-, such as anthros "flower," anthropos "man"); St. Anthony (4c.), Egyptian hermit, patron saint of swineherds, to whom one of each litter was usually vowed, hence Anthony for "smallest pig of the litter (1660s; in condensed form tantony pig from 1590s). St. Anthony's Fire (1520s), popular name for erysipelas, is said to be so called from the tradition that those who sought his intercession recovered from that distemper during a fatal epidemic in 1089.
bobby sox: 1943, from diminutive of bob (n.2) + sox. So called because they are "shortened" compared to knee-socks. Derivative bobby-soxer first attested 1944.
Months ago colored bobby sox folded at the top were decreed, not by anyone or any group but, as usual, by a sudden mysterious and universal acceptance of the new idea. Now no teen-ager dares wear anything but pure white socks without a fold. ["Life" magazine, Dec. 11, 1944]
business (n.): Old English bisignes (Northumbrian) "care, anxiety, occupation," from bisig "careful, anxious, busy, occupied, diligent" (see busy (adj.)) + -ness. Middle English sense of "state of being much occupied or engaged" (mid-14c.) is obsolete, replaced by busyness.

Sense of "a person's work, occupation" is first recorded late 14c. (in late Old English bisig (adj.) appears as a noun with the sense "occupation, state of employment"). Meaning "what one is about at the moment" is from 1590s. Sense of "trade, commercial engagements" is first attested 1727. In 17c. it also could mean "sexual intercourse." Modern two-syllable pronunciation is 17c.

Business card first attested 1840; business letter from 1766. Business end "the practical or effective part" (of something) is American English, by 1874. Phrase business as usual attested from 1865. To mean business "be intent on serious action" is from 1856. To mind (one's) own business is from 1620s. Johnson's dictionary also has busiless "At leisure; without business; unemployed."
dilapidation (n.): early 15c., from Late Latin dilapidationem (nominative dilapidatio) "a squandering," noun of action from past participle stem of Latin dilapidare "throw away, squander, waste," literally "pelt with stones" (thus "ruin, destroy") or else "scatter like stones," from dis- "asunder" (see dis-) + lapidare "throw stones at," from lapis (genitive lapidis) "stone." "Taken in Eng. in a more literal sense than was usual in Latin" [OED].
educrat (n.): 1968, usually pejorative; first element from education, second from bureaucrat. Said to have been coined by Claude R. Kirk Jr. (1926-2011), governor of Florida 1967-71.
While political leaders and corporate CEOs, focusing as usual on the quarterly return, call for "workers for the new economy," their educational reforms are producing just that: students with a grab-bag of minor skills and competencies and minds that are sadly uneventful, incapable of genuine intellectual achievement and lacking any sense of continuity with the historical and cultural traditions of our society. Their world is small, bleak, and limited; their world will become ours. [David Solway, "The Turtle Hypodermic of Sickenpods," Quebec, 2000]
leg (n.): late 13c., from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse leggr "leg, bone of the arm or leg," from Proto-Germanic *lagjaz, with no certain ulterior connections, perhaps from a PIE root meaning "to bend" [Buck]. Compare German Bein "leg," in Old High German "bone, leg." Replaced Old English shank. Of furniture supports from 1670s. The meaning "a part or stage of a journey or race" (1920) is from earlier sailing sense of "a run made on a single tack" (1867), which was usually qualified as long leg, short leg, etc. Slang phrase shake a leg "dance" is attested from 1881. To be on (one's) last legs "at the end of one's life" is from 1590s.
monk (n.): Old English munuc "monk" (used also of women), from Proto-Germanic *muniko- (cognates: Old Frisian munek, Middle Dutch monic, Old High German munih, German Mönch), an early borrowing from Vulgar Latin *monicus (source of French moine, Spanish monje, Italian monaco), from Late Latin monachus "monk," originally "religious hermit," from Ecclesiastical Greek monakhos "monk," noun use of a classical Greek adjective meaning "solitary," from monos "alone" (see mono-). For substitution of -o- for -u-, see come.
In England, before the Reformation, the term was not applied to the members of the mendicant orders, who were always called friars. From the 16th c. to the 19th c., however, it was usual to speak of the friars as a class of monks. In recent times the distinction between the terms has been carefully observed by well-informed writers. In French and Ger. the equivalent of monk is applied equally to 'monks' and 'friars.' [OED]
patriot (n.): 1590s, "compatriot," from Middle French patriote (15c.) and directly from Late Latin patriota "fellow-countryman" (6c.), from Greek patriotes "fellow countryman," from patrios "of one's fathers," patris "fatherland," from pater (genitive patros) "father" (see father (n.)); with -otes, suffix expressing state or condition. Liddell & Scott write that patriotes was "applied to barbarians who had only a common [patris], [politai] being used of Greeks who had a common [polis] (or free-state)."

Meaning "loyal and disinterested supporter of one's country" is attested from c. 1600, but became an ironic term of ridicule or abuse from mid-18c. in England, so that Johnson, who at first defined it as "one whose ruling passion is the love of his country," in his fourth edition added, "It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government."
The name of patriot had become [c. 1744] a by-word of derision. Horace Walpole scarcely exaggerated when he said that ... the most popular declaration which a candidate could make on the hustings was that he had never been and never would be a patriot. [Macaulay, "Horace Walpole," 1833]
Somewhat revived in reference to resistance movements in overrun countries in World War II, it has usually had a positive sense in American English, where the phony and rascally variety has been consigned to the word patrioteer (1928). Oriana Fallaci ["The Rage and the Pride," 2002] marvels that Americans, so fond of patriotic, patriot, and patriotism, lack the root noun and are content to express the idea of patria by cumbersome compounds such as homeland. (Joyce, Shaw, and H.G. Wells all used patria as an English word early 20c., but it failed to stick.) Patriots' Day (April 19, anniversary of the 1775 skirmishes at Lexington and Concord Bridge) was observed as a legal holiday in Maine and Massachusetts from 1894.
romantic (adj.): 1650s, "of the nature of a literary romance," from French romantique, from Middle French romant "a romance," oblique case of Old French romanz "verse narrative" (see romance (n.)).

As a literary style, opposed to classical since before 1812; in music, from 1885. Meaning "characteristic of an ideal love affair" (such as usually formed the subject of literary romances) is from 1660s. Meaning "having a love affair as a theme" is from 1960. Related: Romantical (1670s); romantically. Compare romanticism.
sedan (n.): 1630s, "covered chair on poles," possibly from a southern Italian dialect derivative of Italian sede "chair" (compare Italian seggietta, 1590s; the thing itself was said to have been introduced from Naples), from Latin sedes, related to sedere "sit" (see sedentary). Since Johnson's conjecture, often derived from the town of Sedan in France, where it was said to have been made or first used, but historical evidence for this is lacking.

Introduced in England by Sir Sanders Duncombe in 1634 and first called a covered chair. "In Paris the sedan-chair man was usually an Auvergnat, in London an Irishman" ["Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1929]. Meaning "closed automobile seating four or more" first recorded 1912, American English.
Topsy: slave-girl character in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852), immortal in cliche for her response to a question about her origin put to her by the pious Northern abolitionist Miss Ophelia:
"Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?"
The child looked bewildered, but grinned, as usual.
"Do you know who made you?"
"Nobody as I knows on," said the child, with a short laugh.
The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes twinkled, and she added--
"I spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me."
In addition to being often misquoted by the addition of a "just" (or "jes'"), the line is sometimes used inappropriately in 20c. writing to indicate something that got large without anyone intending it to.
tree (n.): Old English treo, treow "tree" (also "timber, wood, beam, log, stake"), from Proto-Germanic *treuwaz- (cognates: Old Frisian tre, Old Saxon trio, Old Norse tre, Gothic triu "tree"), from PIE *drew-o-, from *deru- "oak" (cognates: Sanskrit dru "tree, wood," daru "wood, log;" Greek drys "oak," drymos "copse, thicket," doru "beam, shaft of a spear;" Old Church Slavonic drievo "tree, wood;" Serbian drvo "tree," drva "wood;" Russian drevo "tree, wood;" Czech drva; Polish drwa "wood;" Lithuanian derva "pine, wood;" Old Irish daur, Welsh derwen "oak," Albanian drusk "oak"). This is from PIE *drew-o-, a suffixed form of the root *deru- "to be firm, solid, steadfast" (see true), with specialized sense "wood, tree" and derivatives referring to objects made of wood.
The line which divides trees from shrubs is largely arbitrary, and dependent upon habit rather than size, the tree having a single trunk usually unbranched for some distance above the ground, while a shrub has usually several stems from the same root and each without a proper trunk. [Century Dictionary]
The widespread use of words originally meaning "oak" in the sense "tree" probably reflects the importance of the oak to ancient Indo-Europeans. In Old English and Middle English also "thing made of wood," especially the cross of the Crucifixion and a gallows (such as Tyburn tree, famous gallows outside London). Middle English also had plural treen, adjective treen (Old English treowen "of a tree, wooden"). For Dutch boom, German Baum, the usual words for "tree," see beam (n.). Meaning "framework of a saddle" is from 1530s. Meaning "representation of familial relationships in the form of a tree" is from c. 1300. Tree-hugger, contemptuous for "environmentalist" is attested by 1989.
Minc'd Pyes do not grow upon every tree,
But search the Ovens for them, and there they be.
["Poor Robin," Almanack, 1669]
dictyostele: "A type of stele found in certain vascular plants (especially ferns) which is broken up into a network of meristeles separated by parenchymatous areas usually associated with leaf-gaps", Early 20th cent. From dictyo- + stele.