英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

limerick [limerick 词源字典]: limerick: [19] The best-known writer of limericks is of course Edward Lear, but ironically the term limerick was not born until after Lear was dead. It is first recorded in 1896, and is said to have come from a Victorian custom of singing nonsense songs at parties, in the limerick rhymescheme (aabba), which always ended with the line ‘Will you come up to Limerick?’ (Limerick of course being a county and town in Ireland).
[limerick etymology, limerick origin, 英语词源]
otter: otter: [OE] The otter is etymologically the ‘wateranimal’. Its name goes back ultimately to an Indo-European *udros, source also of Greek húdrā ‘water-snake’ (the best-known example of which in English is the many-headed Hydra killed by Hercules). This was a derivative of the same base as produced English water. Its Germanic descendant was *otraz, which has become otter in German, Dutch, and English.
=> water
wellington: wellington: [19] The first duke of Wellington (1769–1852) was perhaps the best-known figure in British public life during the first half of the 19th century, having won considerable prestige for his military campaigns during the Napoleonic wars, and (in what amounted virtually to the first instance of personally endorsed clothing) several types of garment worn by or associated with him were named after him – among them the Wellington coat, the Wellington hat, and the Wellington trousers.

It was, however, the Wellington boot (first recorded in 1817) that carried his name down to posterity. The abbreviation welly is first recorded in 1961, and its use as a verb meaning ‘kick’ dates from the mid 1960s. The duke is also commemorated by the wellingtonia [19], a large Californian conifer.
Antietam: place name, eastern U.S., from an Algonquian word perhaps meaning "swift water;" the name occurrs in Pennsylvania and Ohio, but the best-known is a creek near Sharpsburg in Washington County, Maryland, site of a bloody Civil War battle Sept. 17, 1862.
entente (n.): "an understanding," 1854, from French éntente "an understanding," from Old French entente "intent, intention; attention; aim, goal" (12c.), noun use of fem. past participle of entendre "to direct one's attention" (see intent). Political sense arose in 19c. from entente cordiale (1844); the best-known example was that between England and France (1904), to which Russia was added in 1908.
Goldwynism (n.): 1937, in reference to the many humorous malaprop remarks credited to U.S. film producer Samuel G. Goldwyn (1882-1974); the best-known, arguably, being "include me out." Goldwyn is perhaps less popular as the originator of such phrases in American English than baseball player Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (b.1925), but there doesn't seem to be a noun form based on Berra's name in popular use. The surname typically is Old English goldwyn, literally "gold-friend."
inwit (n.): Middle English word meaning "conscience" (early 13c.), "reason, intellect" (c. 1300), from in (adv.) + wit (n.). Not related to Old English inwit, which meant "deceit." Joyce's use in "Ulysses" (1922), which echoes the 14c. work "Ayenbite of Inwyt," is perhaps the best-known example of the modern use of the word as a conscious archaism.
Þese ben also þy fyve inwyttys: Wyl, Resoun, Mynd, Ymaginacioun, and Thoght [Wyclif, c. 1380]

If ... such good old English words as inwit and wanhope should be rehabilitated (and they have been pushing up their heads for thirty years), we should gain a great deal. [Robert Bridges, 1922]
shaker (n.): mid-15c., "one who or which shakes," agent noun from shake (v.). Applied from 1640s (with capital initial) to various Christian sects whose devotional exercises often involved convulsions. The best-known, the American-based "Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing;" so called from 1784; the adjective with reference to furniture styles associated with these Shakers is recorded from 1866. Meaning "container for mixing cocktails, etc." is recorded from 1868. Phrase movers and shakers is attested from 1874.