英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

allow: allow: [14] Allow comes ultimately from two completely different Latin verbs, allaudāre and allocāre, which became blended in Old French alouer. The first, allaudāre, was based on laudāre ‘praise’ (source of English laud, laudable, and laudatory); the second, allocāre (source of English allocate [17]) on locāre ‘place’.

The formal similarity of the Latin verbs gradually drew their meanings closer together. The notion of ‘placing’, and hence ‘allotting’ or ‘assigning’, developed via the now obsolete ‘place to somebody’s credit’ to ‘take into account, admit’. Meanwhile, the idea of ‘praising’ moved through ‘commending’ or ‘approving’ to ‘accepting as true or valid’, and ultimately to ‘permitting’.
=> allocate, laudable, location
aloof: aloof: [16] Aloof was originally a nautical term, a command to steer to windward. Its second syllable is a variant of luff ‘sail closer to the wind’ [13]. This was borrowed from Old French lof, ‘windward side of a ship’, which may itself have been, like so many maritime expressions, of Dutch origin. The modern figurative meaning ‘reserved, uninvolved’ developed via an intermediate physical sense ‘away, at a distance’.
=> luff
appraise: appraise: [15] Originally, appraise meant simply ‘fix the price of’. It came from the Old French verb aprisier ‘value’, which is ultimately a parallel formation with appreciate; it is not clear whether it came directly from late Latin appretiāre, or whether it was a newly formed compound in Old French, based on pris ‘price’. Its earliest spellings in English were thus apprize and apprise, and these continued in use down to the 19th century, with the more metaphorical meaning ‘estimate the worth of’ gradually coming to the fore.

From the 16th century onwards, however, it seems that association with the word praise (which is quite closely related etymologically) has been at work, and by the 19th century the form appraise was firmly established. Apprise ‘inform’, with which appraise is often confused (and which appears superficially to be far closer to the source pris or pretium ‘price’), in fact has no etymological connection with it.

It comes from appris, the past participle of French apprendre ‘teach’ (closely related to English apprehend).
=> appreciate, price
bull: bull: There are three distinct words bull in English. The oldest is the animal name, which first appears in late Old English as bula. Related forms occur in other Germanic languages, including German bulle and Dutch bul. The diminutive bullock is also recorded in late Old English. The second bull is ‘edict’ [13], as in ‘papal bull’. This comes from medieval Latin bulla ‘sealed document’, a development of an earlier sense ‘seal’, which can be traced back to classical Latin bulla ‘bubble’ (source also of English bowl, as in the game of bowls; of boil ‘heat liquid’; of budge [16], via Old French bouger and Vulgar Latin *bullicāre ‘bubble up, boil’; and probably of bill ‘statement of charges’).

And finally there is ‘ludicrous or selfcontradictory statement’ [17], usually now in the phrase Irish bull, whose origins are mysterious; there may be a connection with the Middle English noun bul ‘falsehood’ and the 15th-to 17th-century verb bull ‘mock, cheat’, which has been linked with Old French boler or bouller ‘deceive’. The source of the modern colloquial senses ‘nonsense’ and ‘excessive discipline’ is not clear.

Both are early 20th-century, and closely associated with the synonymous and contemporary bullshit, suggesting a conscious link with bull the animal. In meaning, however, the first at least is closer to bull ‘ludicrous statement’. Bull’s-eye ‘centre of a target’ and ‘large sweet’ are both early 19th-century. Bulldoze is from 1870s America, and was apparently originally applied to the punishment of recalcitrant black slaves; it has been conjectured that the underlying connotation was of ‘giving someone a dose fit for a bull’.

The term bulldozer was applied to the vehicle in the 1930s.
=> phallic; bill, bowl, budge
cabin: cabin: [14] English acquired cabin from Old French cabane, which had it via Provençal cabana from late Latin capanna or cavanna ‘hut, cabin’. Surprisingly, despite their formal and semantic similarity, which has grown closer together over the centuries, cabin has no ultimate connection with cabinet [16], whose immediate source is French cabinet [16], whose immediate source is French cabinet ‘small room’.

The etymology of the French word is disputed; some consider it to be a diminutive form of Old Northern French cabine ‘gambling house’, while others take it as a borrowing from Italian gabbinetto, which perhaps ultimately comes from Latin cavea ‘stall, coop, cage’ (from which English gets cage). Its modern political sense derives from a 17th-century usage ‘private room in which the sovereign’s advisors or council meet’; the body that met there was thus called the Cabinet Council, which quickly became simply Cabinet.
exploit: exploit: [14] Latin explicāre (source of English explicate and explicit) meant ‘unfold’. A Vulgar Latin descendant of its past participle was *explictum ‘something unfolded’, which passed into Old French as exploit or esplait. In the process, the original sense of ‘unfolding’ had developed through ‘bringing out, development’ and ‘advantage, success’ to ‘achievement’.

In the case of the English noun, it is the latter meaning which has survived, and in fact originally the verb too denoted ‘achieve, accomplish’. This seems to have died out in the 18th century, however, and when the verb reappears in the 19th century it is closer to the earlier ‘develop’ in meaning, particularly as applied to ‘getting the most out of’ natural resources. The modern derogatory sense ‘use for one’s own selfish ends’ emerged from this.
=> explicit, fold, ply
fog: fog: [16] The word fog is something of a mystery. It first appears in the 14th century meaning ‘long grass’, a use which persists in Yorkshire fog, the name of a species of grass. This may be of Scandinavian origin. The relationship, if any, between fog ‘grass’ and fog ‘mist’ is not immediately clear, but it has been speculated that the adjective foggy, which to begin with referred to places overgrown with long grass, and then passed via ‘of grassy wetlands’ to ‘boggy, marshy’ may have given rise via this last sense to a noun fog denoting the misty exhalations from such marshy ground.

A rather far-fetched semantic chain, perhaps, lacking documentary evidence at crucial points, and perhaps Danish fog ‘spray, shower’ may be closer to the real source.
if: if: [OE] The Old English version of if was gif, but its initial g was closer to modern English y in pronunciation than to g, and the conjunction gradually evolved through Middle English yif to if. It is not known where it ultimately came from; it is evidently connected with Old High German iba ‘condition’ and Old Norse ef ‘doubt’, but whether it started life as a noun like these or was from the beginning a conjunction is not clear. Its surviving Germanic relatives are German ob ‘whether’ and Dutch of ‘if’.
institute: institute: [15] An institute is etymologically something ‘established’ or ‘set up’. Its ancestor is Latin instituere ‘establish’, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and statuere ‘set up’ (itself a derivative of stāre ‘stand’ and source of English prostitute, statute, etc). The noun derived from this was institūtum, which meant ‘purpose, plan, practice’.

Word and senses were taken over as a package by English, but these meanings are now dead or dying, having been taken over since the 19th century by ‘organization that promotes a particular cause or pursuit’ (this originated in French at the end of the 18th century). The verb institute, however, remains far closer to the original Latin meaning.
=> prostitute, stand, station, statute
jolly: jolly: [14] Old French jolif meant ‘pleasant, merry, festive’ (it has been speculated that it may have been derived from jól, the Old Norse term for the midwinter festival, to which English yule is closely related). English took the adjective over, and whereas in French (the modern form is joli) it has come to mean ‘pretty’, in English it kept closer to the original sense ‘merry’.
=> yule
spring: spring: [OE] The noun spring and the verb spring come from the same source: the Indo-European base *sprengh-, which denoted ‘rapid movement’. Of its Germanic verbal descendants, German and Dutch springen, like English spring, have moved on semantically to ‘jump’, but Swedish springa ‘run’ has stayed closer to its roots. The noun spring in Old English times denoted the place where a stream ‘rises’ from the ground, which soon evolved metaphorically into ‘source, origin’ in general.

The notion of ‘rising’ was also applied figuratively to the ‘beginning of the day’ and to the ‘emergence of new growth’, and the latter led in the 16th century, via the expression spring of the year, to the use of spring for the ‘season following winter’ (replacing the previous term Lent).
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
am (v.): Old English eom "to be, to remain," (Mercian eam, Northumbrian am), from PIE *esmi- (cognates: Old Norse emi, Gothic im, Hittite esmi, Old Church Slavonic jesmi, Lithuanian esmi), from root *es-, the S-ROOT, which also yielded Greek esti-, Latin est, Sanskrit as-, and German ist.

In Old English it existed only in present tense, all other forms being expressed in the W-BASE (see were, was). This cooperative verb is sometimes referred to by linguists as *es-*wes-. Until the distinction broke down 13c., *es-*wes- tended to express "existence," with beon meaning something closer to "come to be" (see be).

Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2. earon/aron The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from use in English in the early 13c. (though it continues in German sind, the 3rd person plural of "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but aron (aren, arn, are, from Proto-Germanic *ar-, probably a variant of PIE root *es-) continued, and as am and be merged it encroached on some uses that previously had belonged to be. By the early 1500s it had established its place in standard English. Art became archaic in the 1800s.
buxom (adj.): late 12c., buhsum "humble, obedient," from Proto-Germanic *buh- stem of Old English bugen "to bow" (see bow (v.)) + -som, for a total meaning "capable of being bent." Meaning progressed from "compliant, obliging," through "lively, jolly," "healthily plump, vigorous," to (in women, and perhaps influenced by lusty) "plump, comely" (1580s). In Johnson [1755] the primary meaning still is "obedient, obsequious."

Used often of breasts, and by 1950s it had begun to be used more narrowly for "bosomy" and could be paired with slim (adj.). Dutch buigzaam, German biegsam "flexible, pliable" hew closer to the original sense of the English cognate.
charade (n.): 1776, from French charade (18c.), probably from Provençal charrado "long talk, chatter," of obscure origin, perhaps from charrar "to chatter, gossip," of echoic origin. Compare Italian ciarlare, Spanish charlar "to talk, prattle." Originally not silent, but relying rather on enigmatic descriptions of the words or syllables.
As we have ever made it a Rule to shew our Attention to the Reader, by 'catching the Manners living, as they rise,' as Mr. Pope expresses it, we think ourselves obliged to give Place to the following Specimens of a new Kind of SMALL WIT, which, for some Weeks past, has been the Subject of Conversation in almost every Society, from the Court to the Cottage. The CHARADE is, in fact, a near Relation of the old Rebus. It is usually formed from a Word of two Syllables; the first Syllable is described by the Writer; then the second; they are afterwards united and the whole Word marked out .... [supplement to "The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure," volumes 58-59, 1776]
Among the examples given are:

My first makes all nature appear of one face;
At the next we find music, and beauty and grace;
And, if this Charade is most easily read,
I think that the third shou'd be thrown at my head.

[The answer is "snow-ball."]

The silent form, the main modern form, was at first a variant known as dumb charades and at first it was not a speed contest; rather it adhered to the old pattern, and the performing team acted out all the parts in order before the audience team began to guess.
There is one species of charade which is performed solely by "dumb motions," somewhat resembling the child's game of "trades and professions"; but the acting charade is a much more amusing, and more difficult matter. ["Goldoni, and Modern Italian Comedy," in "The Foreign And Colonial Quarterly Review," Volume 6, 1846]
An 1850 book, "Acting Charades," reports that Charades en Action were all the rage in French society, and that "Lately, the game has been introduced into the drawing-rooms of a few mirth-loving Englishmen. Its success has been tremendous." Welsh siarad obviously is a loan-word from French or English, but its meaning of "speak, a talk" is closer to the Provençal original.
choice (n.): mid-14c., "that which is choice," from choice (adj.) blended with earlier chois (n.) "action of selecting" (c. 1300); "power of choosing" (early 14c.), "someone or something chosen" (late 14c.), from Old French chois "one's choice; fact of having a choice" (12c., Modern French choix), from verb choisir "to choose, distinguish, discern; recognize, perceive, see," from Frankish or some other Germanic source related to Old English ceosan "to choose, taste, try;" see choose. Late Old English chis "fastidious, choosy," from or related to ceosan, probably also contributed to the development of choice. Replaced Old English cyre "choice, free will," from the same base, probably because the imported word was closer to choose [see note in OED].
fault (n.): late 13c., faute, "deficiency," from Old French faute, earlier falte, "opening, gap; failure, flaw, blemish; lack, deficiency" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *fallita "a shortcoming, falling," from Latin falsus "deceptive, feigned, spurious," past participle of fallere "deceive, disappoint" (see fail (v.)).

The -l- was restored 16c., probably in imitation of Latin, but the letter was silent until 18c. Sense of "physical defect" is from early 14c.; that of "moral culpability" (milder than sin or vice, but more serious than an error) is first recorded late 14c. Geological sense is from 1796. The use in tennis (c. 1600) is closer to the etymological sense.
humanoid: 1912 (adj.), an anthropological hybrid from human + -oid. As a noun, from 1925. Earlier (1906) brand name of a type of cow's milk altered to be closer to human milk intended as food for infants.
like (adj.): "having the same characteristics or qualities" (as another), Middle English shortening of Old English gelic "like, similar," from Proto-Germanic *galika- "having the same form," literally "with a corresponding body" (cognates: Old Saxon gilik, Dutch gelijk, German gleich, Gothic galeiks "equally, like"), a compound of *ga- "with, together" + Germanic base *lik- "body, form; like, same" (cognates: Old English lic "body," German Leiche "corpse," Danish lig, Swedish lik, Dutch lijk "body, corpse"). Analogous, etymologically, to Latin conform. The modern form (rather than *lich) may be from a northern descendant of the Old English word's Norse cognate, glikr.

Formerly with comparative liker and superlative likest (still in use 17c.). The preposition (c. 1200) and the adverb (c. 1300) both are from the adjective. As a conjunction, first attested early 16c. The word has been used as a postponed filler ("going really fast, like") from 1778; as a presumed emphatic ("going, like, really fast") from 1950, originally in counterculture slang and bop talk. Phrase more like it "closer to what is desired" is from 1888.
quarter (n.): c. 1300, "one-fourth of anything; one of four parts or divisions of a thing;" often in reference to the four parts into which a slaughtered animal is cut, from Old French quartier, cartier (12c.), from Latin quartarius "fourth part," from quartus "fourth" (see quart). One of the earliest dated references in English is to "parts of the body as dismembered during execution" (c. 1300).

Used of the phases of the moon from early 15c. The use of quarter of an hour is attested from mid-15c. In Middle English quarter also meant "one of the four divisions of a 12-hour night" (late 14c.), and the quarter of the night meant "nine o'clock p.m." (early 14c.).

From late 14c. as "one of the four quadrants of the heavens;" hence, from the notion of the winds, "a side, a direction" (c. 1400). In heraldry from mid-14c. as "one of the four divisions of a shield or coat of arms." The word's connection with "four" loosened in Middle English and by 15c. expressions such as six-quartered for "six-sided" are found. Meaning "region, locality, area, place" is from c. 1400. Meaning "portion of a town" (identified by the class or race of people who live there) is first attested 1520s. For military sense, see quarters. As a period of time in a football game, from 1911. Quarter horse, bred strong for racing on quarter-mile tracks, first recorded 1834.

The coin (one fourth of a dollar) is peculiar to U.S., first recorded 1783. But quarter could mean "a farthing" in Middle English (late 14c.), and compare British quadrant "a farthing" (c. 1600), and classical Latin quadrans, the name of a coin worth a quarter of an as (the basic unit of Roman currency).

Quarter days (mid-15c.), designated as days when rents were paid and contracts and leases began or expired, were, in England, Lady day (March 25), Midsummer day (June 24), Michaelmas day (Sept. 29), and Christmas day (Dec. 25); in Scotland, keeping closer to the pagan Celtic calendar, they were Candlemas (Feb. 2), Whitsunday (May 15), Lammas (Aug. 1), and Martinmas (Nov. 11). Quarter in the sense "period of three months; one of the four divisions of a year" is recorded from late 14c.
suspicion (n.): c. 1300, "act of suspecting; unverified conjecture of wrongdoing; mistrust, distrust," from Anglo-French suspecioun, corresponding to Old French suspicion, sospeçon "mistrust, suspicion" (Modern French soupçon), from Late Latin suspectionem (nominative suspectio) "mistrust, suspicion, fear, awe," noun of state from past participle stem of Latin suspicere "look up at" (see suspect (adj.)). Spelling in English influenced 14c. by learned Old French forms closer to Latin suspicionem. Used as a verb meaning "to suspect," it figures in literary representations of U.S. Western (Kentucky) slang from 1830s.

"Suspicion" words in other Indo-European languages also tend to be words for "think" or "look" with prefixes meaning "under, behind;" such as Greek hypopsia (hypo "under," opsis "sight"), hyponoia (noein "to think"); Lettish aizduomas (aiz "behind," duomat "think"); Russian podozrenie (Slavic podu "under," Old Church Slavonic zireti "see, look"); Dutch achterdocht (achter "behind," denken "to think").
task (n.): early 14c., "a quantity of labor imposed as a duty," from Old North French tasque (12c., Old French tasche, Modern French tâche) "duty, tax," from Vulgar Latin *tasca "a duty, assessment," metathesis of Medieval Latin taxa, a back-formation of Latin taxare "to evaluate, estimate, assess" (see tax (v.)). General sense of "any piece of work that has to be done" is first recorded 1590s. Phrase take one to task (1680s) preserves the sense that is closer to tax.

German tasche "pocket" is from the same Vulgar Latin source (via Old High German tasca), with presumable sense evolution from "amount of work imposed by some authority," to "payment for that work," to "wages," to "pocket into which money is put," to "any pocket."
wed (v.): Old English weddian "to pledge oneself, covenant to do something, vow; betroth, marry," also "unite (two other people) in a marriage, conduct the marriage ceremony," from Proto-Germanic *wadi- (cognates: Old Norse veðja, Danish vedde "to bet, wager," Old Frisian weddia "to promise," Gothic ga-wadjon "to betroth"), from PIE root *wadh- (1) "to pledge, to redeem a pledge" (cognates: Latin vas, genitive vadis "bail, security," Lithuanian vaduoti "to redeem a pledge").

The sense has remained closer to "pledge" in other Germanic languages (such as German Wette "a bet, wager"); development to "marry" is unique to English. "Originally 'make a woman one's wife by giving a pledge or earnest money', then used of either party" [Buck]. Passively, of two people, "to be joined as husband and wife," from c. 1200. Related: Wedded; wedding.
yellow (adj.): Old English geolu, geolwe, "yellow," from Proto-Germanic *gelwaz (cognates: Old Saxon, Old High German gelo, Middle Dutch ghele, Dutch geel, Middle High German gel, German gelb, Old Norse gulr, Swedish gul "yellow"), from PIE *ghel- (2) "to shine," with derivatives referring to bright materials and gold (see glass). For other Indo-European "yellow" words, see Chloe.

Occasionally in Middle English used of a color closer to blue-gray or gray, of frogs or hazel eyes, and to translate Latin caeruleus, glauco. Also as a noun in Old English. Meaning "light-skinned" (of blacks) first recorded 1808. Applied to Asiatics since 1787, though the first recorded reference is to Turkish words for inhabitants of India. Yellow peril translates German die gelbe gefahr. Sense of "cowardly" is 1856, of unknown origin; the color was traditionally associated rather with jealousy and envy (17c.). Yellow-bellied "cowardly" is from 1924, probably a semi-rhyming reduplication of yellow; earlier yellow-belly was a sailor's name for a half-caste (1867) and a Texas term for Mexican soldiers (1842, based on the color of their uniforms). Yellow dog "mongrel" is attested from c. 1770; slang sense of "contemptible person" first recorded 1881. Yellow fever attested from 1748, American English (jaundice is a symptom).
yogurt (n.): also yoghurt, 1620s, a mispronunciation of Turkish yogurt, in which the -g- is a "soft" sound, in many dialects closer to an English "w." The root yog means roughly "to condense" and is related to yogun "intense," yogush "liquify" (of water vapor), yogur "knead."
convergent: "Coming closer together; converging", Early 18th century: from late Latin convergent- 'inclining together', from the verb convergere (see converge).