英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

vast [vast 词源字典]: vast: [16] Latin vastus originally meant ‘empty, unoccupied, deserted’. The sense ‘huge’, in which English borrowed it, is a secondary semantic development. Another metaphorical route took it to ‘ravaged, destroyed’, in which sense it lies behind English devastate and waste.
=> devastate, waste[vast etymology, vast origin, 英语词源]
derelict (adj.): 1640s, from Latin derelictus "solitary, deserted," past participle of dereliquere "to abandon, forsake, desert," from de- "entirely" + relinquere "leave behind" (see relinquish). Originally especially of vessels abandoned at sea or stranded on shore. As a noun, from 1660s.
desert (v.): "to leave one's duty," late 14c., from Old French deserter (12c.) "leave," literally "undo or sever connection," from Late Latin desertare, frequentative of Latin deserere "to abandon, to leave, forsake, give up, leave in the lurch," from de- "undo" (see de-) + serere "join together, put in a row" (see series). Military sense is first recorded 1640s. Related: Deserted; deserting.
foundling (n.): "deserted infant," c. 1300, from Middle English founden "found," past participle of finden (see find (v.)) + diminutive suffix -ling. Compare Dutch vondeling, German Findling. Middle English also had finding in this sense (late 14c.).
widow (n.): Old English widewe, wuduwe, from Proto-Germanic *widuwo (cognates: Old Saxon widowa, Old Frisian widwe, Middle Dutch, Dutch weduwe, Dutch weeuw, Old High German wituwa, German Witwe, Gothic widuwo), from PIE adjective *widhewo (cognates: Sanskrit vidhuh "lonely, solitary," vidhava "widow;" Avestan vithava, Latin vidua, Old Church Slavonic vidova, Russian vdova, Old Irish fedb, Welsh guedeu "widow;" Persian beva, Greek eitheos "unmarried man;" Latin viduus "bereft, void"), from root *weidh- "to separate" (source of second element in Latin di-videre "to divide;" see with).

Extended to "woman separated from or deserted by her husband" from mid-15c. (usually in a combination, such as grass widow). As a prefix to a name, attested from 1570s. Meaning "short line of type" (especially at the top of a column) is 1904 print shop slang. Widow's mite is from Mark xii:43. Widow's peak is from the belief that hair growing to a point on the forehead is an omen of early widowhood, suggestive of the "peak" of a widow's hood. The widow bird (1747) so-called in reference to the long black tail feathers of the males, suggestive of widows' veils.