英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

googol (n.)[googol 词源字典]: number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeroes, 1940, in "Mathematics and the Imagination," a layman's book on mathematics written by U.S. mathematicians Edward Kasner (1878-1955) and James R. Newman, the word supposedly coined a year or two before by Kasner's 9- (or 8-) year-old nephew (unnamed in the book's account of the event), when asked for a name for an enormous number. Perhaps influenced by comic strip character Barney Google. Googolplex (10 to the power of a googol) coined at the same time, in the same way, with plex.[googol etymology, googol origin, 英语词源]
imperial (adj.): late 14c., "having a commanding quality," from Old French imperial (12c.), from Latin imperialis "of the empire or emperor," from imperium (see empire). Meaning "pertaining to an empire" (especially the Roman) is from late 14c. Imperial presidency in a U.S. context traces to Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s book on the Nixon administration (1974). Related: Imperially.
mako (n.): "large blue shark," listed as 1727 in OED, from "The History of Japan," English translation of Engelbert Kaempfer's German manuscript; however this is claimed by some to be an error, and some say Kaempfer's word represents Japanese makkô(-kujira) "sperm whale." But the description in the text fits neither the shark nor the whale. The word is ultimately from Maori mako "shark, shark's tooth," which is of uncertain etymology. If the 1727 citation is an error, the earliest attested use is 1820, from a book on New Zealand languages.
politics (n.): 1520s, "science of government," from politic (adj.), modeled on Aristotle's ta politika "affairs of state," the name of his book on governing and governments, which was in English mid-15c. as "Polettiques." Also see -ics.
Politicks is the science of good sense, applied to public affairs, and, as those are forever changing, what is wisdom to-day would be folly and perhaps, ruin to-morrow. Politicks is not a science so properly as a business. It cannot have fixed principles, from which a wise man would never swerve, unless the inconstancy of men's view of interest and the capriciousness of the tempers could be fixed. [Fisher Ames (1758-1808)]
Meaning "a person's political allegiances or opinions" is from 1769.
primer (n.1): late 14c., "prayer-book," also "school book" (senses not distinguished in Middle Ages, as reading was taught from prayer books), from Medieval Latin primarius, from Latin primus "first" (see prime (adj.)). The word also might be all or in part from prime (n.) on the same notion as a "Book of Hours." Meaning "small introductory book on any topic" is from 1807.
subliminal (adj.): 1873, "below the threshold" (of consciousness or sensation), formed from Latin stem of sublime (Latin limen, genitive liminis) + -al (1)). Apparently a loan-translation of German unter der Schwelle (des Bewusstseins) "beneath the threshold (of consciousness)," from Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841), author of a textbook on psychology published in 1824. The scare over subliminal advertising came in 1957. Related: Subliminally.