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account [account 词源字典]: account: [14] Account is of Old French origin. It was formed from compter, conter ‘count’ (which derived from Latin computāre) and the prefix a-. Its original meaning in English, too, was ‘count’ or ‘count up’; this had disappeared by the end of the 18th century, but its specialized reference to the keeping of financial records is of equal antiquity. Account for, meaning ‘explain’, arose in the mid 18th century.
=> count[account etymology, account origin, 英语词源]
accoutre: accoutre: [16] Accoutre is related to both couture and sew. English borrowed it from French accoutrer, which meant ‘equip with something, especially clothes’. A stage earlier, Old French had acoustrer, formed from cousture (whence couture) and the prefix a-. This came from Vulgar Latin *consūtūra, literally ‘sewn together’, from con- ‘together’ and sūtūra ‘sewn’ (whence English suture); sūtūra in turn came from the past participial stem of Latin suere, which derived from the same Indo- European root as English sew.
=> couture, sew, suture
acoustic: acoustic: [17] Appropriately enough, acoustic may be distantly related to hear. It first appeared in English in Francis Bacon’s Advancement of Learning 1605, borrowed from Greek akoustikós. This in turn was derived from the Greek verb for ‘hear’, akoúein, which, it has been speculated, may have some connection with *khauzjan, the original Germanic source of English hear, not to mention German hören and Dutch horen (as well as with Latin cavēre ‘be on one’s guard’, and hence with English caution and caveat).
=> caution, caveat, hear
concourse: concourse: see course
couch grass: couch grass: see quick
cough: cough: [14] Although it is largely disguised by the modern English pronunciation, cough is of onomatopoeic origin. It came from a prehistoric Germanic base *kokh- (the kh pronounced not unlike the ch of loch), which initiated the sound of coughing. This has no recorded Old English descendant (although one probably existed, *cohhian), and first appears in the language as Middle English coughen.
could: could: [16] Could began life as cūthe, the past tense of Old English cunnan ‘can’. By Middle English times this had become couthe, and in the 14th century it developed to coude under the influence of the standard past tense ending (e)de. The l was introduced in the 16th century, to bring coude into line with would and should.
=> kith, uncouth
coulter: coulter: see cutlass
council: council: [12] Etymologically, a council is a body that has been ‘called together’ or ‘summoned’. Latin concilium meant ‘assembly, meeting’; it was formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and calāre ‘call, summon’. It passed into English via Anglo-Norman cuncile. It has no direct etymological connection with counsel, but the two are so similar that their meanings have tended to merge at various points down the centuries. Latin concilium also formed the basis of the verb conciliāre, which originally meant ‘bring together, unite’. Its metaphorical sense ‘make more friendly, win over’ is preserved in English conciliate [16].
=> conciliate
counsel: counsel: see consult
count: count: There are two distinct words count in English. Count ‘enumerate’ [14] comes ultimately from Latin computāre ‘calculate’ (source of English compute). It came into English from Old French conter, which had, via the notion of ‘adding up and rendering an account’, developed the sense ‘tell a story’ (preserved in English in the derivatives account and recount).

The derivative counter [14] began life as medieval Latin computātōrium ‘place of accounts’, and entered English via Anglo- Norman counteour. Its modern sense ‘surface for transactions in a shop’ does not seem to have become firmly established until the early 19th century, although it was applied to similar objects in banks from the late 17th century. The noble title count [16] comes via Old French conte from Latin comes, which originally meant ‘companion, attendant’ (it was a compound noun, formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and īre ‘go’, and so its underlying etymological meaning is ‘one who goes with another’).

In the Roman empire it was used for the governor of a province, and in Anglo- Norman it was used to translate English earl. It has never been used as an English title, but the feminine form countess was adopted for the wife of an earl in the 12th century (and viscount was borrowed from Anglo-Norman viscounte in the 14th century). The Latin derivative comitātus was originally a collective noun denoting a ‘group of companions’, but with the development of meaning in comes it came to mean first ‘office of a governor’ and latterly ‘area controlled by a governor’.

In England, this area was the ‘shire’, and so county [14], acquired via Anglo-Norman counte, came to be a synonym for ‘shire’. Another descendant of Latin comes is concomitant [17], from the present participle of late Latin concomitārī.
=> account, compute, putative, recount; concomitant, county
countenance: countenance: [13] A person’s countenance has nothing to do with computation. Etymologically, it is how they ‘contain’ themselves, or conduct themselves, and the word itself is a parallel construction with continence. It was borrowed from Old French contenance (a derivative of the verb contenir ‘contain’), which meant ‘behaviour’, ‘demeanour’, or ‘calmness’ as well as ‘contents’, and originally had this somewhat abstract sense in English.

It was not until the 14th century that the meaning began to develop through ‘facial expression’ to the now familiar ‘face’ (traces of the original sense survive in such expressions as ‘put someone out of countenance’, meaning to make them lose their cool).
=> contain, continence
counter: counter: see count
counterpane: counterpane: see quilt
country: country: [13] Etymologically, the meaning of country is virtually ‘surroundings’. It originated in medieval Latin contrātus ‘lying on the opposite side’, an adjective formed from the proposition contrā ‘against, opposite’. This was used in the phrase terra contrāta ‘land opposite or before one, spread out around one’, and soon broke free to act as a noun in its own right.

In Old French it became cuntree, the form in which it was borrowed into English. Its original notion of ‘area of land’ had quickly become narrowed down to ‘district controlled or occupied by a particular people’, hence ‘nation’, but its use for ‘rural areas as opposed to cities’ does not seem to have developed until the 16th century. The compound countryside originated in Scotland and northern England, probably in the 17th century.
county: county: see count
coupé: coupé: [19] Coupé is the past participle of the French verb couper ‘cut’, and it was originally applied in the early 19th century to a type of four-wheeled covered carriage (in full a carrosse coupé ‘cut-off carriage’). The notion behind the term is a truncated version of an earlier type of coach, known as a berlin, achieved by removing the rear seat. The first record of its application to closed two-door cars comes in 1908.

The French verb couper is a derivative of the noun coup ‘blow’ (itself borrowed into English in the 18th century), which in turn came from medieval Latin colpus (ultimate source of English coppice, which etymologically denotes the ‘cutting down’ of trees). Earlier in time the word can be traced back via Latin colaphus to Greek kólaphos ‘blow, punch’.

A related word is coupon, borrowed from French in the 19th century.
=> coppice, copse, coup
couple: couple: [13] The notion underlying couple is of ‘joining’. The noun came into English via Old French from Latin cōpula ‘tie, connection’. This was a compound noun formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and the verb apere ‘fasten’ (source of English apt, adapt, adept, and inept). Derived from it was the verb cōpulāre, source of English copulate [17].
=> adapt, adept, apt, copulate, inept
courage: courage: [13] Modern English uses heart as a metaphor for ‘innermost feelings or passions’, but this is nothing new. Vulgar Latin took the Latin word cor ‘heart’ and derived from it *corāticum, a noun with just this sense. Borrowed into English via Old French corage, it was used from earliest times for a wide range of such passions, including ‘anger’ or ‘lust’, and it was not until the early 17th century that it became narrowed down in application to ‘bravery’.
=> cordial
courier: courier: see current
course: course: [13] Etymologically, course denotes ‘running’. It comes via Old French cours from Latin cursus, a derivative of the verb currere ‘run’ (from which English gets current and a wide range of other words, from courier to occur). Its earliest meaning in English was ‘onward movement in a particular direction’, but over the centuries it has developed a network of additional senses.

From the same Latin base curs- are concourse [14], cursory [17] (from Latin cursōrius), discourse [14] (and the related discursive [16]), excursion [16], incursion [15], precursor [16], and recourse [14]. The derived noun courser [13] is a doublet of corsair.
=> corsair, courier, current, discourse, excursion, occur
court: court: [12] Latin cohors designated an ‘enclosed yard’ (it was formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and an element hort- which also appears in English horticulture). By extension it came to stand for those assembled in such a yard – a crowd of attendants or company of soldiers; hence the meaning of cohort familiar today. But both in its original sense and as ‘retinue’ the word took another and rather more disguised path into English.

In late Latin the accusative form cohortem had already become cortem, and this passed into English via Old French cort and Anglo-Norman curt. It retains the underlying notion of ‘area enclosed by walls or buildings’ (now reinforced in the tautological compound courtyard [16]), but it seems that an early association of Old French cort with Latin curia ‘sovereign’s assembly’ and ‘legal tribunal’ has contributed two of the word’s commonest meanings in modern English.

The Italian version of the word is corte. From this was derived the verb corteggiare ‘attend court, pay honour’, which produced the noun corteggio, borrowed into English via French as cortège [17]. Other derivatives include courtesy [13], from Old French cortesie (of which curtsey [16] is a specialized use) and courtesan [16], via French courtisane from Italian cortigiana.
=> cohort, courtesy, curtsey, horticulture
cousin: cousin: [13] The word cousin is etymologically related to sister. It comes via Old French cosin from Latin consobrīnus, which meant literally ‘child of one’s mother’s sister’ – that is, ‘cousin on one’s mother’s side’ (consobrīnus was a compound noun formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and sobrīnus ‘maternal cousin’, a derivative of soror ‘sister’ and relative of English sister).

By the time it entered English, it had already broadened out in meaning to cover paternal as well as maternal cousins, and indeed in the Middle Ages it was applied more generally still to any relative other than one’s parents or brother and sister (probably through association with Latin consanguineus ‘blood relative’).
=> sister
couvade: couvade: see incubate
discourse: discourse: see course
rancour: rancour: [14] To account for rancour and its close relative rancid we have to postulate a Latin verb *rancēre ‘stink’, never actually recorded but inferable from its present participle rancēns ‘stinking, putrid’. From it were derived the adjective rancidus, source of English rancid [17], and in post-classical times the noun rancor, source of English rancour.
=> rancid
recourse: recourse: see course
scour: scour: [13] The notion of ‘cleaning’ implicit in scour evolved from an earlier ‘take care of’. For the word goes back ultimately to Latin cūrāre (source of English cure), which originally meant ‘take care of’, and only in medieval times came to mean ‘clean’. Combination with the prefix ex- ‘out’ produced excūrāre ‘clean out’, which reached English via Old French escurer and Middle Dutch scūren. Scour ‘search thoroughly’ [14] (as in ‘scour the countryside’) is a different word, and may come from Old Norse skýra ‘rush in’.
=> cure
scourge: scourge: [13] Scourge comes ultimately from a Latin word for a ‘long strip of leather’, corrigio, which itself was borrowed from Celtic. It had a number of specific applications, including ‘shoelace’, ‘rein’, and ‘whip’, and it was the last that formed the basis of the Vulgar Latin verb *excorrigiāre ‘whip’, which passed into English via Old French escorgier and its derived noun escorge.
scout: scout: [14] Etymologically, a scout is someone who ‘listens’. For the word goes back ultimately to Latin auscultāre ‘listen’, a derivative of the same base that produced Latin auris ‘ear’ (source of English aural [19] and distantly related to English ear). This passed into Old French as escouter ‘listen’ (its modern descendant is écouter), which English adopted as the verb scout, meaning ‘look about, spy’. The noun, from the French derivative escoute, followed in the 15th century.
=> aural, ear
succour: succour: [13] If you succour someone, you are literally ‘running under’ them. The word comes via Old French socorre from Latin succurrere, a compound verb formed from the prefix sub- ‘under’ and currere ‘run’ (source of English courier, course, current, etc). The original sense ‘run under’ evolved metaphorically to ‘run to someone’s assistance’, and then to simply ‘help’.
=> courier, course, current
uncouth: uncouth: [OE] Uncouth originally meant ‘unknown’ or ‘unfamiliar’ – a sense which survived into the 17th century (‘Now the whole superficies of the earth as well uncouth as discovered, is but a little point’, John Boys, Works 1616). ‘Crude, awkward’ is a secondary development, first recorded in the 16th century. The word was formed in the prehistoric Germanic period from the prefix un- ‘not’ and the past participle of *kunnan ‘know’ (whose closest living English relative is could).
=> could
accouchement (n.): 1803, from French accouchement, noun of action from accoucher (see accoucheur).
accoucheur (n.): 1759, "midwife" (properly, "male midwife"), from French accoucheur (Jules Clément, later 17c.), agent noun from accoucher "to go to childbed, be delivered" (13c.) originally simply "to lie down" (12c.), from Old French culcher "to lie," from Latin collocare, from com- "with" (see com-) + locare "to place" (see locate). The fem. is accoucheuse (1847).
account (n.): c. 1300, "reckoning of money received and paid," from Old French acont "account, reckoning, terminal payment," from a "to" (see ad-) + cont "counting, reckoning of money to be paid," from Late Latin computus "a calculation," from Latin computare "calculate" (see compute).

Meaning "sum of (one's) money in a bank" is from 1833. Sense of "narration" is first attested 1610s. Plural accounts used as a collective or singular in phrases such as to give accounts (of something), is from mid-13c. Phrase by all accounts is attested from 1798.
account (v.): c. 1300, "to count, enumerate," from Old French aconter "to count, render account" (Modern French conter), from a "to" (see ad-) + conter "to count, tell" (see count (v.)). Meaning "to reckon for money given or received, render a reckoning," is from late 14c.; sense of "to explain" (c. 1710) is from notion of "answer for money held in trust." Transferred sense of "value" is from late 14c. Related: Accounted; accounting.
accountability (n.): 1770, from accountable + -ity. Earlier was accountableness (1660s).
accountable (adj.): "answerable," literally "liable to be called to account," c. 1400 (mid-14c. in Anglo-French); see account (v.) + -able. Related: Accountably.
accountancy (n.): 1854, from accountant + -cy.
accountant (n.): mid-15c., "accounting officer, one who renders accounts," from Old French acuntant (Modern French accomptant), from present participle of accompter (see account (v.)). Sense of "professional maker of accounts" is recorded from 1530s. The word also was an adjective in Middle English, "accountable; liable to render accounts" (early 15c.).
accounting (n.): "reckoning of numbers," late 14c., verbal noun from account (v.). Phrase no accounting for tastes (1823) translates Latin de gustibus non est disputandum.
accouter (v.): also accoutre, 1590s, from French acoutrer, earlier acostrer (13c.) "arrange, dispose, put on (clothing)," originally "sew up," from Vulgar Latin accosturare "to sew together, sew up," from Latin ad- "to" (see ad-) + *consutura "a sewing together," from Latin consutus, past participle of consuere "to sew together," from con- (see com-) + suere "to sew" (see suture). Related: Accoutered; accoutred; accoutering; accoutring.
accoutrements (n.): 1540s, from Middle French accoustrement (Modern French accoutrement), from accoustrer probably from Old French acostrer "arrange," originally "sew up" (see accouter)
acoustic (adj.): c. 1600, from French acoustique, from Greek akoustikos "pertaining to hearing," from akoustos "heard, audible," verbal adjective from akouein "to hear," probably from copulative prefix a- (see a- (3)) + koein "to mark, perceive, hear," from PIE *kous- "to hear," which is perhaps from root *(s)keu- "to notice, observe" (see caveat). Acoustic guitar (as opposed to electric) attested by 1958. Related: Acoustical; acoustically.
acoustics (n.): 1680s, "science of sound," from acoustic (also see -ics). Meaning "acoustic properties" of a building, etc., attested from 1885.
au courant (adj.): "aware of current events," 1762, French, literally "with the current" (see current (n.)).
beaucoup: French, literally "a great heap," from beau "fine, great" (see beau (n.)) + coup "a stroke," also "a throw," hence, "a heap" (see coup (n.)). Compare Spanish golpe "multitude."
concours (n.): from French concours (16c.) "assemblage of things brought together," also "contest" (see concourse). Usually in English in phrase concours d'elegance.
concourse (n.): late 14c., from Middle French concours, from Latin concursus "a running together," from past participle of concurrere (see concur). Originally "the flowing of a crowd of people;" sense of "open space in a built-up place" is American English, 1862.
couch (v.): c. 1300, "to overlay with gold, inlay," from Old French couchier "to lay down, place; go to bed, put to bed," from Latin collocare "to lay, place, station, arrange," from com- "together" (see com-) + locare "to place" (see locate). Meaning "to put into words" is from 1520s. Related: Couched; couching. Heraldic couchant ("lying down with the head up") is late 15c., from the French present participle.