英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

fax: fax: [20] Fax is a sleeper of a word. The technology of facsimile telegraphy, by which a document is scanned and its image transmitted via a telegraphic link, had been around since the 1870s, but the word fax was not invented for it (in the USA, by the simple expedient of removing the end of facsimile) until the 1940s. Even then, faxes were not widely known about outside the world of commerce, and it was only in the 1970s that the technology, and with it the word (by now a verb as well as a noun), became an everyday phenomenon. Facsimile [17], incidentally, is simply a lexicalization of Latin fac simile ‘make similar’.
scavenger: scavenger: [15] A scavenger was originally a scavager – the extra n is the same as that intruded into messenger, passenger, etc. This was acquired from Anglo-Norman scawager, and it started life as a term for an official whose job was to collect taxes levied on foreign merchants. Etymologically it denoted ‘inspector’, for it was derived from the verb escauwer ‘inspect’, which was borrowed from Flemish scauwen ‘look at’, a relative of English show.

By the 16th century the scavenger had begun to come down in the world, first to a ‘street-cleaner’ and finally to ‘one who gathers or lives on what others have thrown away’. The verb scavenge was derived from it in the 17th century.
=> show
size: size: [13] The etymological notion underlying size is of ‘settling’ something, of fixing an amount. The word is a curtailed version of assize, which went back ultimately to Latin assidēre, literally ‘sit beside someone’. By the time it reached English, via Old French, it had acquired connotations of ‘sitting down to make a judgment on something’, such as a law case (hence the meaning of English assize).

Other matters decided on in this way included the standardization of amounts (of taxes, for example, or food), and this led to the word size being used for ‘dimension’. Size ‘gum’ [15] may be the same word, but the nature of the relationship between the two is unclear.
=> assize, sit
angry (adj.): late 14c., from anger (n.) + -y (2). Originally "full of trouble, vexatious;" sense of "enraged, irate" also is from late 14c. The Old Norse adjective was ongrfullr "sorrowful," and Middle English had angerful "anxious, eager" (mid-13c.). The phrase angry young man dates to 1941 but was popularized in reference to the play "Look Back in Anger" (produced 1956) though it does not occur in that work.

"There are three words in the English language that end in -gry. Two of them are angry and hungry. What is the third?" There is no third (except some extremely obscure ones). Richard Lederer calls this "one of the most outrageous and time-wasting linguistic hoaxes in our nation's history" and traces it to a New York TV quiz show from early 1975.
assessor (n.): late 14c., from Old French assessor "assistant judge, assessor (in court)" (12c., Modern French assesseur) and directly from Latin assessor "an assistant, aid; an assistant judge," in Late Latin "one who assesses taxes," literally "a sitter-by," agent noun from past participle stem of assidere "to sit beside" (see assess).
cargo (n.): 1650s, "freight loaded on a ship," from Spanish cargo "burden," from cargar "to load, impose taxes," from Late Latin carricare "to load on a cart" (see charge (v.)). South Pacific cargo cult is from 1949. Cargo pants attested from 1977.
catchpoll (n.): Old English *kæcepol "tax-gatherer," from Old North French cachepol (Old French chacepol), from Medieval Latin cacepollus "a tax gatherer," literally "chase-chicken." For first element see chase (v.), for second see pullet. In lieu of taxes they would confiscate poultry. Later in English more specifically as "a sheriff's officer whose duty was to make arrests for debt." Compare Old French chacipolerie "tax paid to a nobleman by his subjects allowing them and their families to shelter in his castle in wartime."
collector (n.): late 14c., "gatherer of taxes, etc.," from Anglo-French collectour "collector" (of money or taxes; Old French collector, Modern French collecteur), from Late Latin collector, agent noun from colligere (see collect). Fem. form collectress is attested from 1825.
exaction (n.): late 14c., "action of demanding payment; imposition, requisitioning" of taxes, etc., from Old French exaccion and directly from Latin exactionem (nominative exactio) "a driving out; supervision; exaction; a tax, tribute, impost," noun of action from past participle stem of exigere (see exact (adj.)). Meaning "a tax, tribute, toll, fee," etc. is from mid-15c.
farm (n.): c. 1300, "fixed payment (usually in exchange for taxes collected, etc.), fixed rent," from Old French ferme "a rent, lease" (13c.), from Medieval Latin firma "fixed payment," from Latin firmare "to fix, settle, confirm, strengthen," from firmus "firm" (see firm (adj.)).

Sense of "tract of leased land" is first recorded early 14c.; that of "cultivated land" (leased or not) is 1520s. A word of confused history, but there is agreement that "the purely agricultural sense is comparatively modern" [Century Dictionary]. There is a set of Old English words that appear to be related in sound and sense; if these, too, are from Latin it would be a very early borrowing. Some books strenuously defend a theory that the Anglo-Saxon words are original (perhaps related to feorh "life").

Phrase buy the farm "die in battle," is at least from World War II, perhaps a cynical reference to the draftee's dream of getting out of the war and going home, in many cases to a peaceful farmstead. But fetch the farm is prisoner slang from at least 1879 for "get sent to the infirmary," with reference to the better diet and lighter duties there.
farmer (n.): late 14c., "one who collects taxes, etc.," from Anglo-French fermer, Old French fermier "lease-holder," from Medieval Latin firmarius, from firma "fixed payment" (see farm (n.)). In the agricultural sense, 1590s, replacing native churl and husbandman.
farming (n.): 1590s, "action of farming out, practice of letting or leasing taxes, etc., for collection," verbal noun from farm (v.). Meaning "business of cultivating land, husbandry" is attested by 1733.
immune (adj.): mid-15c., "free; exempt," back-formation from immunity. Latin immunis meant "exempt from public service, free from taxes." Specific modern medical sense of "exempt from a disease" (typically because of inoculation) is from 1881. Immune system attested by 1917.
imposition (n.): late 14c., "the levying of taxes, a tax, duty, tribute," from Old French imposicion "tax, duty; a fixing" (early 14c.), from Latin impositionem (nominative impositio) "a laying on," from imponere "to place upon," from assimilated form of in- "into, in" (see in- (2)) + ponere "to put, place" (past participle positus; see position (n.)). Sense of "the act of putting (something) on (something else)" is from 1590s. Meaning "an act or instance of imposing" (on someone) first recorded 1630s (see impose).
levy (v.): early 13c., "act of raising or collecting," from Anglo-French leve, from Old French levée "act of raising," noun use of fem. past participle of lever "to raise" (see lever). Originally of taxes, later of men for armies (c. 1500). Related: Levied; levying.
liberty (n.): late 14c., "free choice, freedom to do as one chooses," from Old French liberté "freedom, liberty, free will" (14c.), from Latin libertatem (nominative libertas) "freedom, condition of a free man; absence of restraint; permission," from liber "free" (see liberal)
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right. [Learned Hand, 1944]
Nautical sense of "leave of absence" is from 1758. To take liberties "go beyond the bounds of propriety" is from 1620s. Sense of "privileges by grant" (14c.) led to sense of "a person's private land" (mid-15c.), which yielded sense in 18c. in both England and America of "a district within a county but having its own justice of the peace," and also "a district adjacent to a city and in some degree under its municipal jurisdiction" (as in Northern Liberties of Philadelphia). Also compare Old French libertés "local rights, laws, taxes."
payer (n.): "person who pays" (originally wages, late 14c., later taxes, early 15c.), from Old French paiere (13c.), agent noun from paier (see pay (v.)).
perceive (v.): c. 1300, via Anglo-French parceif, Old North French *perceivre (Old French perçoivre) "perceive, notice, see; recognize, understand," from Latin percipere "obtain, gather, seize entirely, take possession of," also, figuratively, "to grasp with the mind, learn, comprehend," literally "to take entirely," from per "thoroughly" (see per) + capere "to grasp, take" (see capable).

Replaced Old English ongietan. Both the Latin senses were in Old French, though the primary sense of Modern French percevoir is literal, "to receive, collect" (rents, taxes, etc.), while English uses the word almost always in the metaphorical sense. Related: Perceived; perceiving.
perspire (v.): 1640s, "to evaporate through the pores," a back-formation from perspiration and in part from Latin perspirare "to breathe, to blow constantly" (see perspiration). Meaning "to sweat" is a polite usage attested from 1725. Medical men tried to maintain a distinction between "sensible" (sweat) and "insensible" perspiration:
[I]t is sufficient for common use to observe, that perspiration is that insensible discharge of vapour from the whole surface of the body and the lungs which is constantly going on in a healthy state; that it is always natural and always salutary; that sweat, on the contrary, is an evacuation, which never appears without some uncommon effort, or some disease to the system, that it weakens and relaxes, and is so far from coinciding with perspiration, that it obstructs and checks it. [Charles White, "A Treatise on the Management of Pregnant and Lying-in Women," London, 1791]
Related: Perspired; perspiring.
proletarian: 1650s (n.) "member of the lowest class;" 1660s (adj.) "of the lowest class of people;" with -ian + Latin proletarius "citizen of the lowest class" (as an adjective, "relating to offspring"), in ancient Rome, propertyless people, exempted from taxes and military service, who served the state only by having children; from proles "offspring, progeny" (see prolific).
squint (n.): "non-coincidence of the optic axes," 1650s, from squint (adj.). Meaning "sidelong glance" is from 1660s.
surfing (n.): 1955, verbal noun from surf (v.). The surfing craze went nationwide in U.S. from California in 1963. Surf-board is from 1826, originally in a Hawaiian and Polynesian context. Surf music attested from 1963.
It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the south part of this town, some day when the sea is rolling in heavily over the reef, and to observe there the evolutions and rapid career of a company of surf-players. The sport is so attractive and full of wild excitement to Hawaiians, and withal so healthful, that I cannot but hope it will be many years before civilization shall look it out of countenance, or make it disreputable to indulge in this manly, though it be dangerous, exercise. [the Rev. Henry T. Cheever, "Life in the Sandwich Islands," New York, 1851]

"The basis of surfing music is a rock and roll bass beat figuration, coupled with a raunch-type weird-sounding lead guitar plus wailing saxes. Surfing music has to sound untrained with a certain rough flavor to appeal to the teenagers." [music publisher Murray Wilson, quoted in "Billboard," June 29, 1963]
tax (n.): early 14c., "obligatory contribution levied by a sovereign or government," from Anglo-French tax, Old French taxe, and directly from Medieval Latin taxa, from Latin taxare (see tax (v.)). Related: Taxes. Tax-deduction is from 1942; tax-shelter is attested from 1961.
taxation (n.): early 14c., "imposition of taxes," from Anglo-French taxacioun, Old French taxacion, from Latin taxationem (nominative taxatio) "a rating, valuing, appraisal," noun of action from past participle stem of taxare (see tax (v.)).
usage (n.): c. 1300, "established practice, custom," from Anglo-French and Old French usage "custom, habit, experience; taxes levied," from us, from Latin usus "use, custom" (see use (v.)). From late 14c. as "service, use, act of using something."
melissic acid: "A straight-chain fatty acid or mixture of acids corresponding to melissyl alcohol, found in various plant and animal waxes; specifically either n-triacontanoic acid (CH3(CH2)28COOH) or triacontane-1-carboxylic acid (CH3(CH2)29COOH)", Mid 19th cent..