英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

alimony: alimony: [17] Alimony is an anglicization of Latin alimōnia, which is based on the verb alere ‘nourish’ (source of alma ‘bounteous’, as in alma mater, and of alumnus). This in turn goes back to a hypothetical root *al-, which is also the basis of English adolescent, adult, altitude (from Latin altus ‘high’), and old.

The original sense ‘nourishment, sustenance’ has now died out, but the specialized ‘support for a former wife’ is of equal antiquity in English. The -mony element in the word represents Latin -mōnia, a fairly meaning-free suffix used for forming nouns from verbs (it is related to -ment, which coincidentally was also combined with alere, to form alimentary), but in the later 20th century it took on a newly productive role in the sense ‘provision of maintenance for a former partner’. Palimony ‘provision for a former non-married partner’ was coined around 1979, and in the 1980s appeared dallymony ‘provision for somebody one has jilted’.
=> adult, altitude, alumnus, old
comedy: comedy: [14] Comedy is of Greek origin. It comes ultimately from Greek kōmos ‘revelry’. This appears to have been combined with ōidós ‘singer, poet’ (a derivative of aeídein ‘sing’, source of English ode and odeon) to produce kōmōidós, literally ‘singer in the revels’, hence ‘actor in a light amusing play’. From this was derived kōmōidíā, which came to English via Latin cōmoedia and Old French comedie.
=> encomium, ode
complain: complain: [14] Complain goes back to the Latin in verb plangere, source also of English plangent. This was formed on a prehistoric base *plak- (from which we also get plankton), and it originally meant ‘hit’. Its meaning developed metaphorically through ‘beat one’s breast’ to ‘lament’, and in medieval Latin it was combined with the intensive prefix com- to produce complangere. When it entered English via Old French complaindre it still meant ‘lament’, and although this sense had died out by about 1700, traces of it remain in ‘complain of’ a particular illness. Complaint [14] came from Old French complainte.
=> plangent, plankton
ejaculate: ejaculate: [16] Etymologically, ejaculate means ‘dart out’. It comes from Latin ejaculārī, a compound verb formed ultimately from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and jaculum ‘dart, javelin’. This in turn was a derivative of jacere ‘throw’ (which itself combined with ex- to form ejicere, source of English eject [15]). The word’s original sense ‘throw out suddenly’ survived (or perhaps has revived) for a time in English, but essentially it has been for its metaphorical uses (‘emit semen’ and ‘exclaim’) that it has been preserved.
=> eject, jesses, jet, object, reject, subject
ginger: ginger: [OE] Few foodstuffs can have been as exhaustively etymologized as ginger – Professor Alan Ross, for instance, begetter of the U/non-U distinction, wrote an entire 74-page monograph on the history of the word in 1952. And deservedly so, for its ancestry is extraordinarily complex. Its ultimate source was Sanskrit śrngavēram, a compound formed from śrngam ‘horn’ and vẽra- ‘body’; the term was applied to ‘ginger’ because of the shape of its edible root.

This passed via Prakrit singabēra and Greek ziggíberis into Latin as zinziberi. In postclassical times the Latin form developed to gingiber or gingiver, which Old English borrowed as gingifer. English reborrowed the word in the 13th century from Old French gingivre, which combined with the descendant of the Old English form to produce Middle English gingivere – whence modern English ginger.

Its verbal use, as in ‘ginger up’, appears to come from the practice of putting a piece of ginger into a lazy horse’s anus to make it buck its ideas up.
hierarchy: hierarchy: [14] Greek hierós meant ‘sacred, holy’. Combined with -arkhēs ‘ruling’ (as in English archbishop) it produced hierárkhēs ‘chief priest’. A derivative of this, hierarkhíā, passed via medieval Latin hierarchia and Old French ierarchie into Middle English as ierarchie (the modern spelling was introduced on the basis of the Latin form in the 16th century).

At first the word was used in English for the medieval categorization of angels (into cherubs and seraphs, powers and dominions, etc), and it was not until the early 17th century that it was applied to the clergy and their grades and ranks. The metaphorical use for any graded system soon followed.
homeopathy: homeopathy: [19] Greek hómoios meant ‘like, similar’. It was derived from homós ‘same’, a word ultimately related to English same which has contributed homogeneous [17], homonym [17], homophone [17], and homosexual [19] to the English language. Combined with -pátheia, a derivative of Greek páthos ‘passion, suffering’, it produced German homöopathie, which was borrowed by English around 1830. Etymologically, the word means ‘cure by similarity’ – that is, by administering minute quantities of the same substance as caused the disease – and contrasts with allopathy [19], based on Greek állos ‘other’.
=> same
incident: incident: [15] An incident is literally that which ‘befalls’. In common with accident and occident, and a wide range of other English words, from cadaver to occasion, it comes ultimately from Latin cadere ‘fall’. This was combined with the prefix in- ‘on’ to produce incidere ‘fall on’, hence ‘befall, happen to’. Its present participial stem incident- passed into English either directly or via French.

The use of a word that literally means ‘fall’ to denote the concept of ‘happening’ is quite a common phenomenon. It occurs also in befall and chance, and operates in other languages than English; Welsh digwydd ‘happen’, for instance, is derived from cwyddo ‘fall’.
=> accident, cadence, case, occasion
increase: increase: [14] The -crease element in increase (which occurs also, of course, in its antonym decrease) means ‘grow’. It comes from Latin crēscere ‘grow’ (source of English crescent), which combined with the prefix in- to produce incrēscere ‘grow in, grow on’. This passed into Old French as encreistre, which English originally took over as encres. The Latin-style spelling, with in- instead of en-, was reintroduced in the 15th century. Derived from Latin incrēscere was incrēmentum ‘growth, increase’, which gave English increment [15].
=> crescent, crew, croissant, decrease, increment
mallet: mallet: [15] Latin malleus meant ‘hammer’ (it may be related to Latin molere ‘grind’, and to Russian mólot and Polish młot ‘hammer’). It passed into Old French as mail, of which the derivative maillet eventually reached English as mallet. Mail itself was borrowed into English as maul ‘hammer’ [13], but it now survives only as a verb (which originally meant ‘hit with a hammer’).

The Latin verb derived from malleus was malleāre ‘hit with a hammer’, from which ultimately English gets malleable [14]. And the Italian descendant of malleus, maglio, was combined with a word for ‘ball’, palla, to form the name of a croquet-like game, pallamaglio; via French this passed into English as pall-mall [17], remembered in the London street-names Pall Mall and The Mall (whence the use of mall [18] for a ‘walkway’ or ‘promenade’, and latterly for a ‘shopping precinct’).
=> mall, malleable, maul, pall-mall
melody: melody: [13] Greek mélos originally meant ‘limb’ (it is related to Cornish mal ‘joint’), but it was transferred metaphorically to a ‘limb or ‘part’ of a piece of music’, a ‘musical phrase’, and from there to ‘song’. It was combined with the element ōid- ‘singing’ (source of English ode) to form melōidíā ‘choral song’, which passed into English via late Latin melōdia and Old French melodie. The compound melodrama [19] is of French origin.
=> melodrama, ode
municipal: municipal: [16] Latin mūnus meant ‘office, duty, gift’. Combined with -ceps ‘taker’ (a derivative of the verb capere ‘take’, source of English capture) it formed mūniceps, which denoted a ‘citizen of a Roman city (known as a mūnicipium) whose inhabitants had Roman citizenship but could not be magistrates’. From mūnicipium was derived the adjective mūnicipālis, source of English municipal; this was originally used for ‘of the internal affairs of a state, domestic’, and the modern application to the sphere of local government did not emerge strongly until the 19th century.

The stem of Latin mūnus also crops up in commūnis (source of English common), and so community and municipality are etymologically related. Mūnus in the later sense ‘gift’ formed the basis of the Latin adjective mūnificus ‘giving gifts’, hence ‘generous’, from which ultimately English gets munificent [16].
=> capture, common
noisome: noisome: [14] Noisome has no etymological connection with noise. Its closest English relative is annoy. This had a shortened from noy ‘trouble, annoy, harm’, current from the 13th to the 17th centuries, which was combined with the suffix -some to form noysome, later noisome, ‘harmful’.
=> annoy
ostrich: ostrich: [13] Greek strouthós seems originally to have meant ‘sparrow’. Mégas strouthós ‘great sparrow’ – the understatement of the ancient world – was used for ‘ostrich’, and the ‘ostrich’ was also called strouthokámelos, because of its long camel-like neck. Eventually strouthós came to be used on its own for ‘ostrich’. From it was derived strouthíōn ‘ostrich’, which passed into late Latin as strūthiō (source of English struthious ‘ostrich-like’ [18]).

Combined with Latin avis ‘bird’ (source of English augur, aviary, etc) this produced Vulgar Latin *avistrūthius, which passed into English via Old French ostrusce as ostrich.
=> struthious
possess: possess: [15] Latin potis ‘able, having power’ (source of English posse and potent) was combined with the verb sīdere ‘sit down’ (a relative of English sit) to form a new verb possīdere. This meant literally ‘sit down as the person in control’, hence by extension ‘take possession of’ and ultimately ‘have, own’. It passed into English via Old French possesser.
=> possible, potent, sit
prepare: prepare: [15] Latin parāre ‘make ready’ lies behind a wide range of English words, from apparatus and apparel to emperor and separate. It combined with the prefix prae- ‘before’ to produce praeparāre ‘make ready in advance’, adopted into English via Old French preparer.
=> apparatus, apparel, emperor, separate
prevaricate: prevaricate: [16] Etymologically, prevaricate means ‘walk crookedly’, and it goes back ultimately to a Latin adjective meaning ‘knockkneed’, varus. From this was derived the verb vāricāre ‘straddle’, which was combined with the prefix prae- ‘before, beyond’ to produce praevāricārī ‘walk crookedly’, hence ‘deviate’. This developed in English to ‘deviate from straightforward behaviour’, hence ‘be evasive, equivocate’.
redeem: redeem: [15] The -deem is not the same word as deem (which is related to doom). In fact, there never was a true -deem in it. It comes from Latin emere ‘take, buy’ (source also of English example, prompt, etc), which when combined with the prefix re- ‘again, back’ had a d grafted into it to produce redimere ‘buy back’. English probably acquired it via French rédimer.
=> example, prompt, sample
retaliate: retaliate: [17] To retaliate is etymologically to give someone ‘so much’ or an equal amount in return for what they have given you. Its ultimate source is Latin tālis ‘suchlike’ (source of French tel ‘such’). This formed the basis of a noun tāliō ‘punishment equal in severity to the wrong that occasioned it’, which was combined with the prefix re- ‘back’ to create the verb retaliāre ‘repay in kind’ – whence English retaliate.
return: return: [14] The origins of return are in Vulgar Latin. There, Latin tornāre (source of English turn), which originally meant ‘turn on a lathe’, was combined with the prefix re- ‘back’ to produce *retornāre ‘turn back’, which passed via Old French retorner into English as return.
=> turn
almanac (n.): late 14c., attested in Anglo-Latin from mid-13c., via Old French almanach or Medieval Latin almanachus, which is of uncertain origin. It is sometimes said to be from a Spanish-Arabic al-manakh "calendar, almanac," but possibly ultimately from Late Greek almenichiakon "calendar," which is said to be of Coptic origin.

This word has been the subject of much speculation. Originally a book of permanent tables of astronomical data; one-year versions, combined with ecclesiastical calendars, date from 16c.; "astrological and weather predictions appear in 16-17th c.; the 'useful statistics' are a modern feature" [OED].
bioethics (n.): also bio-ethics, coined 1970 by U.S. biochemist Van Rensselaer Potter II (1911-2001), who defined it as "Biology combined with diverse humanistic knowledge forging a science that sets a system of medical and environmental priorities for acceptable survival." From bio- + ethics.
bloat (v.): 1670s, "to cause to swell" (earlier, in reference to cured fish, "to cause to be soft," 1610s), from now obsolete bloat (adj.), attested from c. 1300 as "soft, flabby, flexible, pliable," but by 17c. meaning "puffed up, swollen." Perhaps from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse blautr "soaked, soft from being cooked in liquid" (compare Swedish blöt fisk "soaked fish"), possibly from Proto-Germanic *blaut-, from PIE *bhleu- "to swell, well up, overflow," an extension of root *bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell" (see bole).

Influenced by or combined with Old English blawan "blow, puff." Figurative use by 1711. Intransitive meaning "to swell, to become swollen" is from 1735. Related: Bloated; bloating.
bush (n.): "many-stemmed woody plant," Old English bysc, from West Germanic *busk "bush, thicket" (cognates: Old Saxon and Old High German busc, Dutch bosch, bos, German Busch). Influenced by or combined with cognate words from Scandinavian (such as Old Norse buskr, Danish busk, but this might be from West Germanic) and Old French (busche "firewood," apparently of Frankish origin), and also perhaps Anglo-Latin bosca "firewood," from Medieval Latin busca (whence Italian bosco, Spanish bosque, French bois), which apparently also was borrowed from West Germanic; compare Boise.

In British American colonies, applied from 1650s to the uncleared districts, hence "country," as opposed to town (1780); probably originally from Dutch bosch in the same sense, because it seems to appear first in English in former Dutch colonies. Meaning "pubic hair" (especially of a woman) is from 1745. To beat the bushes (mid-15c.) is a way to rouse birds so that they fly into the net which others are holding, which originally was the same thing as beating around the bush (see beat (v.)).
cam (n.1): "a projecting part of a rotating machinery," 1777, from Dutch cam "cog of a wheel," originally "comb;" cognate of English comb (n.). This might have combined with English camber "having a slight arch;" or the whole thing could be from camber.
Diazepam (n.): 1961, from (benzo)diazep(ine) + -am, apparently an arbitrary suffix. The element diazo- denotes two nitrogen atoms combined with one hydrocarbon radical.
magnificence (n.): mid-14c., "great-mindedness, courage," from Old French magnificence "splendor, nobility, grandeur," from Latin magnificentia "splendor, munificence," from stem of magnificus "great, elevated, noble, eminent," also "splendid, rich, fine, costly," literally "doing great deeds," from magnus "great" (see magnate) + root of facere "to make" (see factitious). Meaning "greatness, grandeur, glory" in English is from late 14c. That of "beauty, splendor, wealth" is 15c. As one of the Aristotelian and scholastic virtues, it translates Greek megaloprepeia "liberality of expenditure combined with good taste."
ooh: exclamation of pain, surprise, wonder, etc., 1916. Combined with aah from 1953. Ooh-la-la, exclamation of surprise or appreciation, is attested 1924, from French and suggestive of the supposed raciness of the French.
plumbic (adj.): "combined with lead," 1799, from Latin plumbum (see plumb (n.)) + -ic.
Rabelaisian (adj.): 1817, from French author François Rabelais (c. 1490-1553), whose writings "are distinguished by exuberance of imagination and language combined with extravagance and coarseness of humor and satire." [OED]
witch (n.): Old English wicce "female magician, sorceress," in later use especially "a woman supposed to have dealings with the devil or evil spirits and to be able by their cooperation to perform supernatural acts," fem. of Old English wicca "sorcerer, wizard, man who practices witchcraft or magic," from verb wiccian "to practice witchcraft" (compare Low German wikken, wicken "to use witchcraft," wikker, wicker "soothsayer").

OED says of uncertain origin; Liberman says "None of the proposed etymologies of witch is free from phonetic or semantic difficulties." Klein suggests connection with Old English wigle "divination," and wig, wih "idol." Watkins says the nouns represent a Proto-Germanic *wikkjaz "necromancer" (one who wakes the dead), from PIE *weg-yo-, from *weg- (2) "to be strong, be lively" (see wake (v.)).

That wicce once had a more specific sense than the later general one of "female magician, sorceress" perhaps is suggested by the presence of other words in Old English describing more specific kinds of magical craft. In the Laws of Ælfred (c.890), witchcraft was specifically singled out as a woman's craft, whose practitioners were not to be suffered to live among the West Saxons:
Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon gealdorcræftigan & scinlæcan & wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban."
The other two words combined with it here are gealdricge, a woman who practices "incantations," and scinlæce "female wizard, woman magician," from a root meaning "phantom, evil spirit." Another word that appears in the Anglo-Saxon laws is lyblæca "wizard, sorcerer," but with suggestions of skill in the use of drugs, because the root of the word is lybb "drug, poison, charm." Lybbestre was a fem. word meaning "sorceress," and lybcorn was the name of a certain medicinal seed (perhaps wild saffron). Weekley notes possible connection to Gothic weihs "holy" and German weihan "consecrate," and writes, "the priests of a suppressed religion naturally become magicians to its successors or opponents." In Anglo-Saxon glossaries, wicca renders Latin augur (c. 1100), and wicce stands for "pythoness, divinatricem." In the "Three Kings of Cologne" (c. 1400) wicca translates Magi:
Þe paynyms ... cleped þe iij kyngis Magos, þat is to seye wicchis.
The glossary translates Latin necromantia ("demonum invocatio") with galdre, wiccecræft. The Anglo-Saxon poem called "Men's Crafts" has wiccræft, which appears to be the same word, and by its context means "skill with horses." In a c. 1250 translation of "Exodus," witches is used of the Egyptian midwives who save the newborn sons of the Hebrews: "Ðe wicches hidden hem for-ðan, Biforen pharaun nolden he ben." Witch in reference to a man survived in dialect into 20c., but the fem. form was so dominant by 1601 that men-witches or he-witch began to be used. Extended sense of "old, ugly, and crabbed or malignant woman" is from early 15c; that of "young woman or girl of bewitching aspect or manners" is first recorded 1740. Witch doctor is from 1718; applied to African magicians from 1836.
At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, 'she is a witch,' or 'she is a wise woman.' [Reginald Scot, "The Discoverie of Witchcraft," 1584]
aluminate (1): "A compound or salt in which alumina or aluminium hydroxide is combined with an alkali or base. Also: any of various oxyanions or hydroxy anions of aluminium; a compound containing such an anion", Early 19th cent. From alumina + -ate, apparently after Swedish aluminiat.
hapten: "A small molecule which, when combined with a larger carrier such as a protein, can elicit the production of antibodies which bind specifically to it (in the free or combined state)", Early 20th century: from Greek haptein 'fasten'.
etherated: "Treated, mixed, or (especially in later use) chemically combined with ether", Early 19th cent.; earliest use found in Medical and Physical Journal. From ether + -ated.
riff-raff: "Disreputable or undesirable people", Late 15th century (as riff and raff): from Old French rif et raf 'one and all, every bit', of Germanic origin. More rifle from Middle English:The Old French rifler meant both ‘to plunder’ and to ‘to scratch’. The plunder sense developed via ‘search for valuables’ into ‘to search thoroughly’ (mid 17th century). The word was then re-borrowed from French in the ‘scratch’ sense for the making of grooves in the barrel of a gun (mid 17th century). These rifled guns then became known as rifles (mid 18th century). Riff-raff (Middle English), formerly written as riff and raff, is probably also from rifler combined with raffler ‘to carry off’. The sense ‘disreputable person’ would have developed in much the same way as vulgar and hoi poloi.
aglycone: "An organic compound (typically an alcohol or phenol) which is combined with a sugar molecule to form a glycoside, from which it may be obtained by hydrolysis", Early 20th cent. From a- + glyco- + -one, after German Aglykon.
adenosine: "A compound consisting of adenine combined with ribose, present in all living tissue in combined form as nucleotides", Early 20th century: blend of adenine and ribose.