quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- concrete




- concrete: [14] In origin, something concrete is something that has ‘grown together’. The word comes, via Old French concret, from Latin concrētus, the past participle of concrēscere ‘grow together’, hence ‘harden’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and crēscere ‘grow’ (source also of English crescent, increase, and accrue). Its original application in English was fairly general – referring to that which is solid or material; its use for the building material did not emerge until the early 19th century.
=> accrue, crescent, decrease, increase - timber




- timber: [OE] Timber originally denoted a ‘building’ – the Lindisfarne Gospels of around 950 translated Mark 13:1 (‘See what manner of stones and what buildings are here’) as ‘See what stones and what timber’. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic *timram, whose German descendant zimmer ‘room’ has remained closer to its semantic roots (but German zimmermann means ‘carpenter’).
And this in turn went back to Indo-European *demrom, a derivative of the base *dem-, *dom- ‘build’, from which English also gets dome, domestic, etc. The sense ‘building’ gradually developed into ‘building material’, then ‘wood used for building’, and finally ‘wood’ in general.
=> dome, domestic - concrete (adj.)




- late 14c., "actual, solid," from Latin concretus "condensed, hardened, thick, hard, stiff, curdled, congealed, clotted," figuratively "thick; dim," literally "grown together;" past participle of concrescere "to grow together," from com- "together" (see com-) + crescere "to grow" (see crescent). A logicians' term until meaning began to expand 1600s. Noun sense of "building material made from cement, etc." is first recorded 1834.
- timber (n.)




- Old English timber "building, structure," in late Old English "building material, trees suitable for building," and "trees or woods in general," from Proto-Germanic *timran (cognates: Old Saxon timbar "a building, room," Old Frisian timber "wood, building," Old High German zimbar "timber, wooden dwelling, room," Old Norse timbr "timber," German Zimmer "room"), from PIE *deme- "to build," possibly from root *dem- "house, household" (source of Greek domos, Latin domus; see domestic (adj.)).
The related Old English verb timbran, timbrian was the chief word for "to build" (compare Dutch timmeren, German zimmern). As a call of warning when a cut tree is about to fall, it is attested from 1912 in Canadian English. Timbers in the nautical slang sense (see shiver (v.2)) is from the specialized meaning "pieces of wood composing the frames of a ship's hull" (1748).
The timber-wolf (1846) of the U.S. West is the gray wolf, not confined to forests but so-called to distinguish it from the prairie-wolf (coyote). - wattle (n.1)




- "stakes interlaced with twigs and forming the framework of the wall of a building," Old English watol "hurdle," in plural "twigs, thatching, tiles," related to weðel "bandage," from Proto-Germanic *wadlaz, from PIE *au- (3) "to weave" (see weeds). Surviving in wattle-and-daub "building material for huts, etc." (1808).
- terracotta




- "A type of fired clay, typically of a brownish-red colour and unglazed, used as an ornamental building material and in modelling", Early 18th century: from Italian terra cotta 'baked earth', from Latin terra cocta.