英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

adamant [adamant 词源字典]: adamant: [14] In Greek, adamas meant ‘unbreakable, invincible’. It was formed from the verb daman ‘subdue, break down’ (which came from the same source as English tame) plus the negative prefix a-. It developed a noun usage as a ‘hard substance’, specifically ‘diamond’ or ‘very hard metal’, and this passed into Latin as adamāns, or, in its stem form, adamant-. Hence Old French adamaunt, and eventually English adamant.
=> diamond, tame[adamant etymology, adamant origin, 英语词源]
belfry: belfry: [13] Etymologically, belfry has nothing to do with bells; it was a chance similarity between the two words that led to belfry being used from the 15th century onwards for ‘bell-tower’. The original English form was berfrey, and it meant ‘movable seige-tower’. It came from Old French berfrei, which in turn was borrowed from a hypothetical Frankish *bergfrith, a compound whose two elements mean respectively ‘protect’ (English gets bargain, borough, borrow, and bury from the same root) and ‘peace, shelter’ (hence German friede ‘peace’); the underlying sense of the word is thus the rather tautological ‘protective shelter’.

A tendency to break down the symmetry between the two rs in the word led in the 15th century to the formation of belfrey in both English and French (l is phonetically close to r), and at around the same time we find the first reference to it meaning ‘bell-tower’, in Promptorium parvulorum 1440, an early English-Latin dictionary: ‘Bellfray, campanarium’.
=> affray, bargain, borrow, borough, bury, neighbour
that: that: [OE] That is a very ancient word, going right back to prehistoric Indo-European *tad (source also of Greek tó ‘the’ and Russian tot’, ta, to ‘that’). Its original function in English was as the neuter form of a demonstrative pronoun. This came to be used as the definite article (modern English the), but as the grammatical gender system began to break down in the early Middle English period, that broke away from the definite article and began to be used as a demonstrative adjective. Its use as a relative pronoun goes back to the Old English period.
=> the
craze (n.): late 15c., "break down in health," from craze (v.) in its Middle English sense; this led to a noun sense of "mental breakdown," and by 1813 to the extension to "mania, fad," or, as The Century Dictionary (1902) defines it, "An unreasoning or capricious liking or affectation of liking, more or less sudden and temporary, and usually shared by a number of persons, especially in society, for something particular, uncommon, peculiar, or curious ...."
debris (n.): 1708, from French débris "remains, waste, rubbish" (16c.), from obsolete debriser "break down, crush," from Old French de- (see de-) + briser "to break," from Late Latin brisare, possibly of Gaulish origin (compare Old Irish brissim "I break").
fail (v.): c. 1200, "be unsuccessful in accomplishing a purpose;" also "cease to exist or to function, come to an end;" early 13c. as "fail in expectation or performance," from Old French falir "be lacking, miss, not succeed; run out, come to an end; err, make a mistake; be dying; let down, disappoint" (11c., Modern French faillir), from Vulgar Latin *fallire, from Latin fallere "to trip, cause to fall;" figuratively "to deceive, trick, dupe, cheat, elude; fail, be lacking or defective." Related: Failed; failing.

Replaced Old English abreoðan. From c. 1200 as "be unsuccessful in accomplishing a purpose;" also "cease to exist or to function, come to an end;" early 13c. as "fail in expectation or performance." From mid-13c. of food, goods, etc., "to run short in supply, be used up;" from c. 1300 of crops, seeds, land. From c. 1300 of strength, spirits, courage, etc., "suffer loss of vigor; grow feeble;" from mid-14c. of persons. From late 14c. of material objects, "break down, go to pieces."
fatigue (n.): 1660s, "that which causes weariness," from French fatigue "weariness," from fatiguer "to tire" (15c.), from Latin fatigare "to weary, to tire out," originally "to cause to break down," from pre-Latin adjective *fati-agos "driving to the point of breakdown," with first half from Old Latin *fatis, which is of unknown origin but apparently related to affatim (adv.) "sufficiently" and to fatisci "crack, split." The second half is the root of agere "to drive" (see act (n.)).

Especially "the labors of military persons" (1776). Meaning "a feeling of weariness from exertion" is from 1719. Of metals or other materials under strain, from 1877.
give (v.): Old English giefan (West Saxon) "to give, bestow, deliver to another; allot, grant; commit, devote, entrust," class V strong verb (past tense geaf, past participle giefen), from Proto-Germanic *geban (cognates: Old Frisian jeva, Middle Dutch gheven, Dutch geven, Old High German geban, German geben, Gothic giban), from PIE *ghabh- "to take, hold, have, give" (see habit). It became yiven in Middle English, but changed to guttural "g" by influence of Old Norse gefa "to give," Old Danish givæ.

Meaning "to yield to pressure" is from 1570s. Give in "yield" is from 1610s; give out is mid-14c. as "publish, announce;" meaning "run out, break down" is from 1520s. Give up "surrender, resign, quit" is mid-12c. To give (someone) a cold seems to reflect the old belief that one could be cured of disease by deliberately infecting others. What gives? "what is happening?" is attested from 1940. To not give a (some thing regarded as trivial and valueless) is from c. 1300 (early examples were a straw, a grass, a mite).