quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- alchemy
- alchemy: [14] Alchemy comes, via Old French alkemie and medieval Latin alchimia, from Arabic alkīmīā. Broken down into its component parts, this represents Arabic al ‘the’ and kīmīā, a word borrowed by Arabic from Greek khēmíā ‘alchemy’ – that is, the art of transmuting base metals into gold. (It has been suggested that khēmīā is the same word as Khēmīā, the ancient name for Egypt, on the grounds that alchemy originated in Egypt, but it seems more likely that it derives from Greek khūmós ‘fluid’ – source of English chyme [17] – itself based on the verb khein ‘pour’).
Modern English chemistry comes not directly from Greek khēmíā, but from alchemy, with the loss of the first syllable.
=> chemistry, chyme - analysis
- analysis: [16] The underlying etymological notion contained in analysis is of ‘undoing’ or ‘loosening’, so that the component parts are separated and revealed. The word comes ultimately from Greek análusis, a derivative of the compound verb analúein ‘undo’, which was formed from the prefix ana- ‘up, back’ and the verb lúein ‘loosen, free’ (related to English less, loose, lose, and loss).
It entered English via medieval Latin, and in the 17th century was anglicized to analyse: ‘The Analyse I gave of the contents of this Verse’, Daniel Rogers, Naaman the Syrian 1642. This did not last long, but it may have provided the impetus for the introduction of the verb analyse, which first appeared around 1600; its later development was supported by French analyser.
=> dialysis, less, loose, lose, loss - ballast
- ballast: [16] Originally, ballast appears to have meant literally ‘bare load’ – that is, a load carried by a ship simply for the sake of its weight, and without any commercial value. English probably acquired it, via Low German, from a Scandinavian language; Old Swedish and Old Danish had not only ballast but also barlast, which appears to betray the word’s component parts: bar, related to English bare, and last ‘burden’ (Old English had hlæst ‘burden’, related to lade, which survived into the 20th century as a measure of weight for various commodities).
=> bare, lade - dialysis
- dialysis: [16] As in the case of its close relative analysis, the underlying etymological notion contained in dialysis is of undoing or loosening, so that the component parts are separated. The word comes ultimately from Greek diálusis, a derivative of dialúein ‘tear apart’; this was a compound verb formed from the prefix dia- ‘apart’ and lúein ‘loosen, free’ (related to English less, loose, lose, and loss).
In Greek it meant simply ‘separation’, but it was borrowed into English, via Latin dialysis, as a rhetorical term denoting a set of propositions without a connecting conjunction. The chemical sense, ‘separation of molecules or particles’ (from which the modern application to ‘renal dialysis’ comes), was introduced in the 1860s by the chemist Thomas Graham (1805–69).
=> analysis, less, loose, lose, loss - every
- every: [OE] Stripped down into its component parts, every means literally ‘ever each’. It was originally an Old English compound made up of ǣfre ‘ever’ and ǣlc ‘each’, in which basically the ‘ever’ was performing an emphasizing function; in modern English terms it signified something like ‘every single’, or, in colloquial American, ‘every which’. By late Old English times the two elements had fused to form a single word.
=> each, ever - forgive
- forgive: [OE] Forgive is what is known technically as a ‘calque’ or loan translation – that is, it was created by taking the component parts of a foreign word, translating them literally, and then putting them back together to form a new word. In this case the foreign word was Latin perdōnāre ‘forgive’ (source of English pardon), which was a compound verb formed from per- ‘thoroughly’ and dōnāre ‘give’ (its underlying sense was ‘give wholeheartedly’). These two elements were translated in prehistoric Germanic times and assembled to give *fergeban, from which have come German vergeben, Dutch vergeven, and English forgive.
=> give - federal (adj.)
- 1640s, as a theological term (in reference to "covenants" between God and man), from French fédéral, an adjective formed from Latin foedus (genitive foederis) "covenant, league, treaty, alliance," from PIE *bhoid-es-, from root *bheidh- "to trust" (which also is the source of Latin fides "faith;" see faith).
Secular meaning "pertaining to a covenant or treaty" (1650s) led to political sense of "formed by agreement among independent states" (1707), from use of the word in federal union "union based on a treaty" (popularized during formation of U.S.A. 1776-1787) and like phrases. Also from this period in U.S. history comes the sense "favoring the central government" (1788) and the especial use of the word (as opposed to confederate) to mean a state in which the federal authority is independent of the component parts within its legitimate sphere of action. Used from 1861 in reference to the Northern forces in the American Civil War.