quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- baluster



[baluster 词源字典] - baluster: [17] Etymologically, baluster and banister are the same word. Both come ultimately from Greek balāustion ‘pomegranate flower’, which reached English via Latin balaustium, Italian balaustro, and French balustre. The reason for the application of the term to the uprights supporting a staircase handrail is that the lower part of a pomegranate flower has a double curve, inwards at the top and then bulging outwards at the bottom, similar to the design of some early balusters.
A balustrade [17], from Italian balaustrata via French, is a row of balusters. Already by the mid 17th century a transformation of the l to an n had taken place, producing the parallel banister.
=> balustrade, banister[baluster etymology, baluster origin, 英语词源] - bucket




- bucket: [13] We first encounter bucket in the Anglo-Norman forms buket and buquet. It is not entirely clear where this came from, but it may be a derivative of Old English būc. The primary underlying sense of this was ‘something bulging or swelling’, and hence it meant not only ‘jug’ but also ‘belly’ (related are German bauch and Swedish buk ‘paunch’). It survived dialectally into modern English as bowk, meaning ‘milkpail’ and ‘large tub used in coal mines’. The bucket of ‘kick the bucket’ was originally a beam from from which slaughtered animals were hung; it is probably a separate word, from Old French buquet ‘balance’.
- aggie (n.2)




- type of toy marble, by 1905, American English, colloquial shortening of agate (q.v.).
Excited groups gather about rude circles scratched in the mud, and there is talk of "pureys," and "reals," and "aggies," and "commies," and "fen dubs!" There is a rich click about the bulging pockets of the boys, and every so often in school time something drops on the floor and rolls noisily across the room. When Miss Daniels asks: "Who did that?" the boys all look so astonished. Who did what pray tell? ["McClure's Magazine," May 1905]
- belly (n.)




- Old English belg, bylig (West Saxon), bælg (Anglian) "leather bag, purse, bellows," from Proto-Germanic *balgiz "bag" (cognates: Old Norse belgr "bag, bellows," bylgja "billow," Gothic balgs "wineskin"), from PIE *bholgh-, from root *bhelgh- "to swell," an extension of *bhel- (2) "to blow, swell" (see bole). Meaning shifted to "abdomen of a human or animal" (late 13c.) as the old plural form of the noun emerged as a separate word (see bellows). Meaning "bulging part or concave surface of anything" is 1590s. The West Germanic root had a figurative or extended sense of "anger, arrogance" (as in Old English bolgenmod "enraged;" belgan (v.) "to become angry"), probably from the notion of "swelling."
Indo-European languages commonly use the same word for both the external belly and the internal (stomach, womb, etc.), but the distinction of external and internal is somewhat present in English belly/stomach; Greek gastr- (see gastric) in classical language denoted the paunch or belly, while modern science uses it only in reference to the stomach as an organ.
As a personal name from 12c. From c. 1200 as a symbol of gluttony. Belly-naked in Middle English was "stripped to the belly, completely naked." Fastidious avoidance of belly in speech and writing (compensated for by stretching the senses of imported stomach and abdomen, baby-talk tummy and misappropriated midriff) began late 18c. and the word was banished from Bibles in many early 19c. editions. Belly-punch (n.) is attested from 1811. - bucket (n.)




- mid-13c., from Anglo-French buquet "bucket, pail," from Old French buquet "bucket," which is from Frankish or some other Germanic source, or a diminutive of cognate Old English buc "pitcher, bulging vessel," originally "belly" (buckets were formerly of leather as well as wood), both from West Germanic *buh- (cognates: Dutch buik, Old High German buh, German Bauch "belly"), possibly from a variant of PIE root *beu-, *bheu- "to grow, swell" (see bull (n.2)).
Kick the bucket "to die" (1785) perhaps is from unrelated Old French buquet "balance," a beam from which slaughtered animals were hung; perhaps reinforced by the notion of suicide by hanging after standing on an upturned bucket (but Farmer calls attention to bucket "a Norfolk term for a pulley"). - bulge (v.)




- "to protrude, swell out," 1670s, from bulge (n.). Related: Bulged; bulging.
- commencement (n.)




- late 13c., "beginning," from Old French comencement "beginning, start" (Modern French commencement), from comencier (see commence). Meaning "school graduation ceremony" attested by 1850, American English. (Sense "entrance upon the privileges of a master or doctor in a university" is from late 14c.)
I know what you are thinking of -- the class members grouped in a semicircle on the stage, the three scared boys in new ready-made black suits, the seventeen pretty girls in fluffy white dresses (the gowns of the year), each senior holding a ribbon-tied manuscript bulging with thoughts on "Beyond the Alps Lies Italy," "Our Ship is Launched -- Whither Shall it Sail?" and similar topics. [Charles Moreau Harger, "The Real Commencement," "New Outlook," May 8, 1909]
- extension (n.)




- c. 1400, "swelling, bulging," from Latin extensionem/extentionem (nominative extensio/extentio) "a stretching out, extension," noun of action from past participle stem of extendere (see extend). In a concrete sense, "extended portion of something" (a railroad, etc.), from 1852. Telephone sense is from 1906.
- gibbous (adj.)




- c. 1400, "bulging, convex," from Late Latin gibbus "hunchbacked," from Latin gibbus "a hump, a hunch," as an adjective, "bulging," from Proto-Italic *gifri- "hump," *gifro- "hump-backed," of uncertain origin. De Vaan suggests a PIE *geibh-, with possible cognates in Lithuanian geibus "gawky, plump," geibstu "become weak;" Norwegian dialect keiv "slanted, wrong," keiva "left hand," perhaps united by a general sense of "bodily defect." Of the moon from early 15c.; also used from 15c. of hunchbacks. Related: Gibbosity.
- pop-eyed (adj.)




- "having bulging eyes," 1820; see pop (v.) + eye (n.).
- swag (n.)




- 1650s, "a lurching or swaying," from swag (v.). Meaning "ornamental festoon" (1794) is said to be probably a separate development from the verb (but see swage). Swag lamp attested from 1966.
Colloquial sense of "promotional material" (from recording companies, etc.) was in use by 2001; swag was English criminal's slang for "quantity of stolen property, loot" from c. 1839. This might be related to earlier senses of "round bag" (c. 1300) and "big, blustering fellow" (1580s), which may represent separate borrowings from the Scandinavian source. "The primary meaning was 'a bulging bag'" [Klein].