英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

sconce [sconce 词源字典]: sconce: Effectively, English now only has one word sconce in general use, although others have come and gone in the past. That is the noun meaning ‘candlestick’ or ‘wall bracket for a light’ [14]. It originally denoted a ‘lantern’ or ‘covered candlestick’, and came via Old French esconse from medieval Latin absconsa. This was short for laterna absconsa, literally ‘hidden lantern’; absconsa was the feminine past participle of Latin abscondere ‘hide’ (source of English abscond [16]), a compound verb formed from the prefix ab- ‘away’ and condere ‘put, stow’.

It may be that sconce ‘lantern, lamp’ lay behind the now obsolete slang sconce ‘head’ [16], and there are grounds for believing that this in turn inspired the old university slang term sconce ‘penalty of drinking a large amount of beer for a breach of the rules’ [17] (the underlying notion being of a poll tax or ‘head’ tax). A fourth sconce, now altogether defunct, was a military term for a ‘small fort’ [16].

This was borrowed from Dutch schans, which came via Middle High German schanze from Italian scanso ‘defence’. This in turn was a derivative of the verb scansare ‘turn aside, ward off’, which was descended from Vulgar Latin *excampsāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and campsāre ‘turn round, sail by’. A memory of the word survives in English, however, in the derived verb ensconce [16] (etymologically ‘hide behind a fortification’).
=> abscond; ensconce[sconce etymology, sconce origin, 英语词源]
sun: sun: [OE] Not surprisingly, considering the central importance of the sun to human life, the word for it in the vast majority of modern European languages goes back to a common Indo-European source – *sāu- or *su-. These variants have however differentiated into several distinct camps. The *sāu- form adopted an -lsuffix, and evolved into Greek hélios (source of English heliotrope), Latin sōl (whence French soleil, Italian sole, and Spanish sol, not to mention English solar, solarium, etc), Welsh haul, and Swedish and Danish sol.

The *suform with an -l- ending has given Russian solnce, Czech slunce, Serbo-Croat sunce, etc. But the modern West Germanic languages have inherited the *su- form with an -n- suffix, giving German sonne, Dutch zon, and English sun.
=> heliotrope, solar, solarium
viking: viking: [19] There are two competing theories as to the origin of the word viking. If its ancestry is genuinely Scandinavian (and Old Norse víkingr is first recorded in the 10th century), then it was presumably based on Old Norse vík ‘inlet’, and it would denote etymologically ‘person who lives by the fjords’ – a logical enough notion. However, earlier traces of the word have been found in Old English and Old Frisian, from around the 8th century, which suggests the alternative theory that it may have been coined from Old English wīc ‘camp’ (ancestor of the -wick, -wich of English place-names).

On this view, the term originated as a word used by the Anglo-Saxons for the Norse raiders, who made temporary camps while they attacked and plundered the local populace. It was introduced into modern English at the start of the 19th century as an antiquarian’s or historian’s term.
compound (n.1): 1670s, via Dutch (kampoeng) or Portuguese, from Malay kampong "village, group of buildings." Spelling influenced by compound (v.). Originally, "the enclosure for a factory or settlement of Europeans in the East," later used of South African diamond miners' camps (1893), then of large fenced-in spaces generally (1946).
Dachau: town in Bavaria, Germany, from Old High German daha "clay" + ouwa "island," describing its situation on high ground by the Amper River. Infamous as the site of a Nazi concentration camp nearby, opened in 1933 as a detention site for political prisoners and surrendered to the U.S. Army April 29, 1945. Not a death camp per se, but as it was one of the places where inmates from other camps were sent as the Reich collapsed at the end of the war, and as it was one of the few large camps overrun by British or American forces, it has come to symbolize Nazi atrocities in many minds in the West. "Arbeit Macht Frei" was spelled out in metal on the gate (as it was on other concentration camps, such as Gross-Rosen, Sachsenhausen, Theresienstadt).
death camp (n.): 1944, in reference to the Nazis, probably translating German Todeslager; they also were known as extermination camps (German Vernichtungslager); historians usually count six of them: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno, Bełżec, Majdanek, Sobibór, Treblinka.
gulag (n.): system of prisons and labor camps, especially for political detainees, in the former Soviet Union; rough acronym from Russian Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh lagerei "Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps," set up in 1931.
haywire (n.): "soft wire for binding bales of hay," by 1891, from hay + wire (n.). Adjective meaning "poorly equipped, makeshift" is 1905, American English, from the sense of something held together only with haywire, particularly said to be from use of the stuff in New England lumber camps for jury-rigging and makeshift purposes, so that hay wire outfit became the "contemptuous term for loggers with poor logging equipment" [Bryant, "Logging," 1913]. Its springy, uncontrollable quality led to the sense in go haywire (by 1915).
logrolling (n.): also log-rolling, in the legislative vote-trading sense, 1823, American English, from the notion of neighbors on the frontier helping one another with the heavy work of clearing land and building cabins (as in phrase you roll my log and I'll roll yours); see log (n.1) + rolling.
LOG-ROLLING. 1. In the lumber regions of Maine it is customary for men of different logging camps to appoint days for helping each other in rolling the logs to the river, after they are felled and trimmed -- this rolling being about the hardest work incident to the business. Thus the men of three or four camps will unite, say on Monday, to roll for camp No. 1, -- on Tuesday for camp No. 2, -- on Wednesday for camp No. 3, -- and so on, through the whole number of camps within convenient distance of each other. [Bartlett]
Luxor: place in Egypt, from Arabic al-Kusur, literally "the palaces," from plural of kasr, which is from Latin castrum "fortified camp" (see castle). There are remains of Roman camps nearby.
pimp (n.): c. 1600, of unknown origin, perhaps from Middle French pimpant "alluring in dress, seductive," present participle of pimper "to dress elegantly" (16c.), from Old French pimpelorer, pipelorer "decorate, color, beautify." Weekley suggests Middle French pimpreneau, defined in Cotgrave [French-English Dictionary, 1611] as "a knave, rascall, varlet, scoundrell," but Liberman is against this.
Judging by such recorded meanings of pimp as 'helper in mines; servant in logging camps,' this word was originally applied to boys and servants. [Liberman]
The word also means "informer, stool pigeon" in Australia and New Zealand and in South Africa, where by early 1960s it existed in Swahili form impimpsi. Pimpmobile first recorded 1973 (six years before Popemobile).
PIMP. A male procurer, or cock bawd; also a small faggot used about London for lighting fires, named from introducing the fire to the coals. [Grose, "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," London, 1785]
strip (v.): "make bare," early 13c., from Old English -striepan, -strypan "to plunder, despoil" (as in West Saxon bestrypan "to plunder"), from Proto-Germanic *straupijan (cognates: Middle Dutch stropen "to strip off, to ramble about plundering," Old High German stroufen "to strip off, plunder," German streifen "strip off, touch upon, to ramble, roam, rove"). Meaning "to unclothe" is recorded from early 13c. Intransitive sense from late 14c. Of screw threads, from 1839; of gear wheels, from 1873. Meaning "perform a strip-tease" is from 1929. Related: Stripped; stripping. Strip poker is attested from 1916, in a joke in "The Technology Monthly and Harvard Engineering Journal":
"Say, Bill how, did the game come out?"
"It ended in a tie."
"Oh, were you playing strip poker?"
strip search is from 1947, in reference to World War II prison camps.
Urdu: official language of Pakistan, 1796, from Hindustani urdu "camp," from Turkish ordu (source of horde); short for zaban-i-urdu "language of the camp." Compare Dzongkha, a variant of Tibetan and the official language of Bhutan, literally "the language of the fortress." "So named because it grew up since the eleventh century in the camps of the Mohammedan conquerors of India as a means of communication between them and the subject population of central Hindustan." [Century Dictionary]
Viking (n.): Scandinavian pirate, 1801, vikingr, in "The History of the Anglo-Saxons" by English historian Sharon H. Turner (1768-1847); he suggested the second element might be connected to king:
The name by which the pirates were at first distinguished was Vikingr, which perhaps originally meant kings of the bays. It was in bays that they ambushed, to dart upon the passing voyager.
But this later was dismissed as incorrect. The form viking is attested in 1820, in Jamieson's notes to "The Bruce." The word is a historians' revival; it was not used in Middle English, but it was reintroduced from Old Norse vikingr "freebooter, sea-rover, pirate, viking," which usually is explained as meaning properly "one who came from the fjords," from vik "creek, inlet, small bay" (cognates: Old English wic, Middle High German wich "bay," and second element in Reykjavik). But Old English wicing and Old Frisian wizing are almost 300 years older than the earliest attestation of the Old Norse word, and probably derive from wic "village, camp" (large temporary camps were a feature of the Viking raids), related to Latin vicus "village, habitation" (see villa).

The connection between the Norse and Old English words is still much debated. The period of Viking activity was roughly 8c. to 11c. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the raiding armies generally were referred to as þa Deniscan "the Danes," while those who settled in England were identified by their place of settlement. Old Norse viking (n.) meant "freebooting voyage, piracy;" one would "go on a viking" (fara í viking).
Zyklon (n.): type of fumigant used to kill rats in enclosed spaces, such as holds of ships, boxcars, etc., 1926, from German Zyklon, commercial name of a type of hydrogen cyanide, said to be of unknown etymology, but it is the usual German form of the word cyclone. There were at least three varieties, A, B, and C, Zyklon-B being the one notoriously used in the Nazi death camps.