quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- abridge




- abridge: see brief
- bride




- bride: [OE] Bride goes back via Old English bryd to Germanic *brūthiz, and has a wide range of relations in other Germanic languages (including German braut, Dutch bruid, and Swedish brud). All mean ‘woman being married’, so the word has shown remarkable semantic stability; but where it came from originally is not known. In modern English bridal is purely adjectival, but it originated in the Old English noun brydealu ‘wedding feast’, literally ‘bride ale’.
- bridegroom




- bridegroom: see groom
- bridge




- bridge: [OE] A distant relative of bridge, Old Slavic bruvino ‘beam’, coupled with the meaning of the cognate Old Norse bryggja ‘gangway’, suggest that the underlying etymological meaning of the word is not ‘spanning structure’ but ‘road or structure made of logs’. The Norse word, incidentally, produced the Scottish and northern English brig ‘bridge’.
The card game bridge is first unambiguously mentioned in English in the 1880s, and its name has no connection with the ‘spanning’ bridge. The earliest recorded form of the word is biritch. Its source has never been satisfactorily explained, but since a game resembling bridge is known to have been played for many centuries in the Middle East, it could well be that the name originated in that area.
One suggestion put forward is that it came from an unrecorded Turkish *bir-ü, literally ‘one-three’ (one hand being exposed during the game while the other three are concealed).
- bridle




- bridle: [OE] The Old English word was brīdel, which came from the same source (Germanic *bregd-) as braid. The basic meaning element of this was something like ‘pull or twitch jerkily from side to side’, so the application to bridle, which one pulls on with reins to one side or the other to control the horse’s direction, is fairly clear. The metaphorical verbal sense ‘take offence’ dates from the 18th century.
=> braid - abridge (v.)




- c. 1300, abreggen, "to make shorter, to condense," from Old French abregier "abridge, diminish, shorten," from Late Latin abbreviare "make short" (see abbreviate). The sound development from Latin -vi- to French -dg- is paralleled in assuage (from assuavidare) and deluge (from diluvium). Related: Abridged; abridging.
- abridgement (n.)




- late 15c., from Old French abregement "shortening, abbreviation," from abregier (see abridge).
- bridal (adj.)




- mid-15c., transferred use of noun bridal "wedding feast," Old English brydealo "marriage feast," from bryd ealu, literally "bride ale" (see bride + ale); second element later confused with suffix -al (1), especially after c. 1600.
- bride (n.)




- Old English bryd "bride, betrothed or newly married woman," from Proto-Germanic *bruthiz "woman being married" (cognates: Old Frisian breid, Dutch bruid, Old High German brut, German Braut "bride"). Gothic cognate bruþs, however, meant "daughter-in-law," and the form of the word borrowed from Old High German into Medieval Latin (bruta) and Old French (bruy) had only this sense. In ancient Indo-European custom, the married woman went to live with her husband's family, so the only "newly wed female" in such a household would have been the daughter-in-law. On the same notion, some trace the word itself to the PIE verbal root *bru- "to cook, brew, make broth," as this likely was the daughter-in-law's job.
- bridegroom (n.)




- Old English brydguma "suitor," from bryd "bride" (see bride) + guma "man" (source also of Old Norse gumi, Old High German gomo, cognate with Latin homo "man;" see homunculus). Ending altered 16c. by folk etymology after groom (n.) "groom, boy, lad" (q.v.).
Common Germanic compound (compare Old Saxon brudigumo, Old Norse bruðgumi, Old High German brutigomo, German Bräutigam), except in Gothic, which used bruþsfaþs, literally "bride's lord." - bridesmaid (n.)




- 1550s, bridemaid, from bride + maid. The -s- is excrescent but began to appear by 1794 and the form with it predominated by the end of the 19c.
- bridewell (n.)




- "prison," 1550s, from Bridewell, house of correction in London, originally a royal lodging (given by Edward VI for a hospital, later converted to a prison) near Bride's Well, short for St. Bridget's Well.
- bridge (n.1)




- "causeway over a ravine or river," Old English brycge, from Proto-Germanic *brugjo (cognates: Old Saxon bruggia, Old Norse bryggja, Old Frisian brigge, Dutch brug, Old High German brucca, German Brücke), from PIE root *bhru "log, beam," hence "wooden causeway" (cognates: Gaulish briva "bridge," Old Church Slavonic bruvuno "beam," Serbian brv "footbridge"). For vowel evolution, see bury. Meaning "bony upper part of the nose" is from early 15c.; of stringed instruments from late 14c. The bridge of a ship (by 1854) originally was a "narrow raised platform athwart the ship whence the Captain issues his orders" [Sir Geoffrey Callender, "Sea Passages"].
Bridge in steam-vessels is the connection between the paddle-boxes, from which the officer in charge directs the motion of the vessel. [Smythe, "The Sailor's Word-Book," 1867]
- bridge (v.)




- Old English brycgian "to bridge, make a causeway," from bridge (n.). Related: Bridged; bridging.
- bridge (n.2)




- card game, 1886 (perhaps as early as 1843), an alteration of biritch, but the source and meaning of that are obscure. "Probably of Levantine origin, since some form of the game appears to have been long known in the Near East" [OED]. One guess is that it represents Turkish *bir-üç "one-three," because one hand is exposed and three are concealed. The game also was known early as Russian whist (attested in English from 1839).
- Bridget




- fem. proper name, from Irish Brighid, fire goddess, from brigh "strength," from Celtic *brig-o-, from PIE *bhrgh-nt- "high, mighty," from root *bhrgh- "high" (see borough).
- bridle (n.)




- Old English bridel "bridle, rein, curb, restraint," related to bregdan "move quickly," from Proto-Germanic *bregdilaz (see braid (v.)).
- bridle (v.)




- "to control, dominate," c. 1200, from Old English bridlian "to fit with a bridle," from bridel (see bridle (n.)). Meaning "to throw up the head" (as a horse does when reined in) is from mid-15c. Related: Bridled; bridling.
- Cambridge




- Old English Grontabricc (c.745) "Bridge on the River Granta" (a Celtic river name, of obscure origin). The change to Cante- and later Cam- was due to Norman influence. The river name Cam is a back-formation in this case, but Cam also was a legitimate Celtic river name, meaning "crooked."
- debridement (n.)




- "removal of damaged tissue from a wound," 1839, from French débridement, literally "an unbridling," from dé- (see de-) + bride "bridle," from a Germanic source akin to Middle High German bridel (see bridle). Related: debride, debriding.
- drawbridge (n.)




- 14c., from draw (v.) + bridge (n.).
- foot-bridge (n.)




- c. 1500, from foot (n.) + bridge (n.1).
- Hebrides




- originally Ebudae, Haebudes, of uncertain origin. Apparently a scribal error turned -u- into -ri-. The Norse name, Suðregar, "Southern Islands," is relative to the Orkneys. Related: Hebridean.
- hybrid (n.)




- c. 1600, from Latin hybrida, variant of ibrida "mongrel," specifically "offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar," of unknown origin but probably from Greek and somehow related to hubris. A rare word before c. 1850. The adjective is attested from 1716.
- hybridity (n.)




- 1837, from hybrid + -ity.
- hybridization (n.)




- 1824, from hybridize (1802, from hybrid + -ize) + -ation.
- Oxbridge




- 1849, a conflation of Oxford and Cambridge, used in reference to the characteristics common to the two universities.
- unabridged (adj.)




- 1590s, from un- (1) "not" + past participle of abridge (v.). Since 19c. chiefly in reference to literary works.
- unbridled (adj.)




- late 14c., originally in figurative sense of "unrestrained, ungoverned," from un- (1) "not" + bridled (see bridle (v.)). Similar formation in Middle Dutch ongebreidelt. Literal sense of "not fitted with a bridle" (of horses) is not recorded before 1550s. The verb unbridle (see un- (2)) is attested from c. 1400 in the literal sense; mid-15c. in the figurative sense.
- bridie




- "A meat pasty", Perhaps from obsolete bride's pie.
- colubrid




- "A snake of a very large family (Colubridae) which includes the majority of harmless species, such as grass snakes and garter snakes. The few venomous species have grooved fangs in the rear of the upper jaw", Late 19th century: from modern Latin Colubridae (plural), from Latin coluber 'snake'.
- reciprocal hybrid




- "A hybrid resulting from a reciprocal cross", Late 19th cent.; earliest use found in Sydney Vines (1849–1934), botanist.