英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

adder [adder 词源字典]: adder: [OE] In Old English, the term for a snake (any snake, not just an adder) was nǣddre; there are or were related forms in many other European languages, such as Latin natrix, Welsh neidr, and German natter (but there does not seem to be any connection with the natterjack toad). Around the 14th century, however, the word began to lose its initial consonant. The noun phrase including the indefinite article, a nadder, became misanalysed as an adder, and by the 17th century nadder had disappeared from the mainstream language (though it survived much longer in northern dialects).
[adder etymology, adder origin, 英语词源]
ado: ado: [14] In origin, ado (like affair) means literally ‘to do’. This use of the preposition at (ado = at do) is a direct borrowing from Old Norse, where it was used before the infinitive of verbs, where English would use to. Ado persisted in this literal sense in northern English dialects, where Old Norse influence was strong, well into the 19th century, but by the late 16th century it was already a noun with the connotations of ‘activity’ or ‘fuss’ which have preserved it (alongside the indigenous to-do) in modern English.
=> do
ankle: ankle: [14] Ankle comes from a probable Old Norse word *ankula. It has several relatives in other Germanic languages (German and Dutch enkel, for instance, and Swedish and Danish ankel) and can be traced back to an Indo- European base *angg- ‘bent’ (ultimate source also of anchor and angle). Before the Old Norse form spread through the language, English had its own native version of the word: anclēow. This survived until the 15th century in mainstream English, and for much longer in local dialects.
=> anchor, angle
arise: arise: [OE] Arise is a compound verb with cognate forms in many other Germanic languages (Gothic, for instance, had urreisan). The prefix a- originally meant ‘away, out’, and hence was used as an intensive; rise comes from an unidentified Germanic source which some etymologists have connected with Latin rīvus ‘stream’ (source of English rivulet), on the basis of the notion of a stream ‘rising’ from a particular source.

The compound arise was in fact far commoner than the simple form rise in the Old English period, and it was only in early Middle English that rise began to take its place. This happened first in northern dialects, and may have been precipitated by Old Norse rísa. Today, it is only in the sense ‘come into existence’ that arise is commoner.
=> raise, rear, rise, rivulet
artichoke: artichoke: [16] The word artichoke is of Arabic origin; it comes from al kharshōf ‘the artichoke’, which was the Arabic term for a plant of the thistle family with edible flower-parts. This was borrowed into Spanish as alcarchofa, and passed from there into Italian as arcicioffo. In northern dialects this became articiocco, the form in which the word was borrowed into other European languages, including English.

The term was first applied to the Jerusalem artichoke, a plant with edible tuberous roots, early in the 17th century. The epithet Jerusalem has no connection with the holy city; it arose by folk etymology, that is, the adaptation of an unfamiliar foreign word to the lexical system of one’s own language. In this case the word was girasole, Italian for ‘sunflower’ (the Jerusalem artichoke is of the sunflower family).
ask: ask: [OE] The Old English ancestor of ask existed in two main forms: āscian and ācsian. The first produced descendants such as asshe, which died out in the 16th century; the second resulted in axe (still extant in some dialects), which by metathesis – the reversal of the consonant sounds k and s – became modern English ask. Ultimately the word comes from a prehistoric West Germanic verb *aiskōjan (source of German heischen, a poetical term for ‘ask’); cognates in other, non-Germanic, Indo- European languages include Latin aeruscāre ‘beg’ and Sanskrit iccháti ‘seek’.
bleak: bleak: [16] Bleak originally meant ‘pale’, and comes ultimately from an Indo-European base *bhleg-, possible source of black and a variant of *phleg-, which produced Greek phlégein ‘burn’ and Latin flagrāre ‘burn’ (whence English conflagration and flagrant; flame, fulminate, and refulgent are also closely related).

From *bhlegcame the prehistoric Germanic adjective *blaikos ‘white’, from which Old English got blāc ‘pale’ (the sense relationship, as with the possibly related blaze, is between ‘burning’, ‘shining brightly’, ‘white’, and ‘pale’). This survived until the 15th century in southern English dialects as bloke, and until the 16th century in the North as blake.

Its disappearance was no doubt hastened by its resemblance to black, both formally and semantically, since both ‘pale’ and ‘dark’ carry implications of colourlessness. Blake did however persist in Northern dialects until modern times in the sense ‘yellow’. Meanwhile, around the middle of the 16th century bleak had begun to put in an appearance, borrowed from a close relative of bloke/blake, Old Norse bleikr ‘shining, white’.

The modern sense ‘bare’ is recorded from very early on. A derivative of the Germanic base *blaikwas the verb *blaikjōn, source of Old English blǣcan ‘whiten’, the ancestor of modern English bleach (which may be related to blight). And a nasalized version of the stem may have produced blink [14].
=> bleach, blight, blink, conflagration, flagrant, flame, fulminate
brain: brain: [OE] Old English brægen came from a Germanic *bragnam. Its rather restricted distribution in modern Germanic languages (apart from English brain there is only Dutch and Frisian brein) suggests that in prehistoric times it may have been limited to the area of North Germany where the Low German dialects were spoken, but it may well have some connection with Greek brekhmós ‘forehead’.
cosset: cosset: [17] Cosset may originally have meant ‘someone who lives in a cottage’. Old English had a word cotsǣta ‘cottager’, which was formed from cot ‘cottage’ and *sǣt-, an element related to the verb sit. This disappeared from the language after the Old English period, but not before it was adopted into Anglo-Norman as cozet or coscet (forms which appear in Domesday Book).

It has been suggested that this is the same word as turns up in local dialects from the 16th century meaning ‘lamb reared by hand, pet lamb’ (that is, a lamb kept by a cottager rather than at liberty with the flock), and further that the notion of pampering a pet lamb gave rise to the verb cosset.
cove: cove: [OE] Old English cofa meant ‘small room’, as used for sleeping in or as a storeroom. It was descended from Germanic *kubon, which was probably also the ultimate ancestor of cubbyhole [19] (the superficially similar cubicle is not related). In the late Old English period this seems to have developed in northern and Scottish dialects to ‘small hollow place in coastal rocks, cave’, and hence (although not, apparently, until as late as the 16th century) to ‘small bay’. (The other cove [16], a dated slang term for ‘chap’, may come from Romany kova ‘thing, person’.)
=> cubbyhole
faze: faze: [19] Faze ‘disconcert’ is now mainly restricted to American English, but in fact it has an extensive prehistory stretching back to Anglo-Saxon times. It is a variant of feeze, a verb meaning ‘drive away’ or ‘alarm’ as well as ‘disconcert’ which survives in American English and in some British dialects, and which comes from Old English fēsian ‘drive away’.
gag: gag: [15] Middle English gaggen meant ‘strangle, suffocate’, so the word started out with strong connotations that seem to have become submerged in local dialects as it came to be used more commonly in the milder sense ‘obstruct someone’s mouth’. In the 20th century, however, they have re-emerged in the intransitive sense ‘choke’. It is not clear how the 19th-century noun sense ‘joke’ is connected, if at all. As for the word’s source, it is generally said to have originated as an imitation of someone retching or choking.
garden: garden: [14] Ultimately, garden and yard are the same word. Both come from prehistoric Germanic *gardon, but whereas yard reached English via a direct Germanic route, garden diverted via the Romance languages. Vulgar Latin borrowed *gardon as *gardo ‘enclosure’, and formed from it the adjective *gardīnus ‘enclosed’. The phrase hortus gardīnus ‘enclosed garden’ came to be abbreviated to gardīnus, which gave Old Northern French gardin, the source of the English word (more southerly dialects of Old French had jardin, borrowed by Italian as giardino).
=> yard
glad: glad: [OE] The original meaning of Old English glæd was ‘bright, shining’. It went back to a prehistoric Germanic *glathaz, which was related to Latin glaber ‘smooth, bald’ (source of English glabrous [17] and Old Slavic gladuku ‘smooth’). ‘Happy’ is a secondary semantic development, which evidently took place before the various Germanic dialects went their own way, for it is shared by Swedish and Danish glad (the sense ‘smooth’, also an extension of ‘bright, shining’, is preserved in German glatt).
=> glabrous
gondola: gondola: [16] The gondola, the narrow boat used on Venetian canals, gets its name from the way it rocks gently in the water. Italian gondola is an adaptation of gondolà, a word meaning ‘roll, rock’ in the Rhaeto-Romanic dialect of Friuli, in northeastern Italy (Rhaeto-Romanic is a cover term for a group of Romance-language dialects spoken in southern Switzerland, northern Italy, and the Tyrol). Gondola was first applied to the cabin suspended from an airship or balloon in the 1890s (probably as a translation of German gondel).
haversack: haversack: [18] Etymologically, a haversack is a ‘bag for oats’. The word comes via French havresac from German habersack, a compound formed from the now dialectal haber ‘oats’ and sack ‘bag’. This denoted originally a bag used in the army for feeding oats to horses, but by the time it reached English it had broadened out to a ‘bag for soldiers’ provisions’, carried over the shoulders (northern dialects of English, incidentally, had the term haver for ‘oats’, probably borrowed from Old Norse hafri, and related forms are still widespread among the Germanic languages, including German hafer, Dutch haver, and Swedish and Danish havre.

It has been speculated that the word is related to Latin caper and Old Norse hafr ‘goat’, in which case it would mean etymologically ‘goat’s food’).
hen: hen: [OE] Etymologically, a hen is a ‘singing bird’. The word goes back ultimately to a prehistoric Germanic *khanon ‘male fowl, cock’, which was related to the Latin verb canere ‘sing’ (source of English chant). In the West Germanic dialects a feminine form developed, *khannjō, which has become German henne, Dutch hen, Swedish höna, Danish høne, and English hen. (The original masculine form survives in German hahn, Dutch haan, and Swedish and Danish hane, but English has given it up – the Old English word was hana, and if it had survived to the present day it would probably be *hane.) The metaphorical extension of the term to any female bird took place in the 14th century.
=> chant
him: him: [OE] Him was originally the dative case of Old English hē ‘he’, which in the late Old English period gradually started to take over from the original accusative hine as the general object form (the ’un or ’n still occasionally found in southern English dialects for ‘him’ may represent the last vestiges of this). The dative ending -m is also found in, for example, German ihm (dative of er ‘he’) and Dutch hem.
=> he
hire: hire: [OE] Hire probably originated in North Germany, in the area where the set of dialects known as Low German was spoken. It comes from a prehistoric *khūr-, which also produced Dutch huren (Swedish hyra and Danish hyre were borrowed from Low German).
hope: hope: [OE] The origins of the word hope are obscure. It appears to have started life among the Low German dialects of northern Germany (whence English hope and Dutch hoop), and later spread to Scandinavia (giving Swedish hopp and Danish haab) and High German (modern German has the verb hoffen and the derived noun hoffnung ‘hope’). Where did the original Low German forms come from, though? A suggestion that has found some favour is that the word is related to hop, and that it started from the notion of ‘jumping to safety’. The theory goes that the ‘place of refuge’ thus reached gives one ‘hope’, but it has an air of desperation.
huckster: huckster: [12] The Low German dialects of northern Germany appear to have had in prehistoric times a root *huk- which denoted ‘sell’. It has been suggested that this was the source of English hawker ‘peddler’, and with the alternative agent suffix -ster (which originally signified ‘female doer’, but in Low German was used for males) it produced huckster – perhaps borrowed from Middle Dutch hokester.
=> hawk
hump: hump: [18] Hump seems to have originated among the Low German dialects of North Germany and the Low Countries – Dutch, for instance, has the probably related homp ‘lump’. It first appeared in English towards the end of the 17th century in the compound hump-backed, but by the first decade of the 18th century it was being used on its own. (Another theory is that it arose from a blend of the now obsolete crumpbacked with hunchbacked [16], whose hunch- is of unknown origin.)
iron: iron: [OE] Iron is probably a Celtic contribution to English, but the borrowing took place in the prehistoric period, before the Germanic dialects separated, and so English shares the word with German (eisen), Dutch (ijzen), Swedish (järn), etc. The prehistoric Celtic form from which these all ultimately came was *īsarnon, which some have linked with Latin aes ‘bronze’ and Sanskrit isira- ‘strong’. The ancient Indo- European peoples had already split up into groups speaking mutually unintelligible tongues by the time iron came into general use, so there was never any common Indo-European term for it.
palm: palm: Palm the tree [OE] and the palm of the hand [14] are effectively distinct words in English, but they have the same ultimate source: Latin palma. This originally meant ‘palm of the hand’ (it is related to Irish lám ‘hand’ and Welsh llaw ‘hand’), and the application to the tree is a secondary one, alluding to the shape of the cluster of palm leaves, like the fingers of a hand.

The Latin word was borrowed into the Germanic dialects in prehistoric times in the tree sense, and is now widespread (German palme and Dutch and Swedish palm as well as English palm). English acquired it in the ‘hand’ sense via Old French paume, with subsequent reversion to the Latin spelling. The French diminutive palmette denotes a stylized palm leaf used as a decorative device, particularly on cornices.

It was borrowed into English in the mid-19th century, and is thought to have formed the basis of English pelmet [20].
=> pelmet
pond: pond: [13] Pond is historically the same word as pound ‘enclosure’. The differentiation between the two was established early on, although pound continued to be used for ‘pond’ in Scotland and in some English dialects until quite recently. The common denominator is that ponds were originally specifically used for keeping fish in. The reason for the phonetic change from pound to pond is not known.
=> pound
sly: sly: [12] Etymologically, sly means ‘able to hit’. It was borrowed from Old Norse slǣgr ‘clever, cunning’, which went back ultimately to the prehistoric Germanic base *slakh-, *slag-, *slōg- ‘hit’ (source also of English slaughter, slay, etc). The word’s original approbatory connotations of ‘cleverness’ or ‘skill’ survived into the 20th century in northern dialects, but elsewhere they were soon ousted by the notion of ‘underhandedness’. More neutral associations linger on in sleight ‘dexterity’ [13] (as in ‘sleight of hand’), which was acquired from an Old Norse derivative of slǣgr.
=> slaughter, slay, sleight
starve: starve: [OE] Starve means etymologically ‘be stiff’ – it goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *star-, *ster- ‘be stiff’, which also produced English starch, stare, etc. The ‘stiffness’ of a corpse led to its use for ‘die’ – a meaning which it retains in the related German sterben and Dutch sterven. In English, however, from the 12th century onwards, starve gradually narrowed down in meaning to ‘dying from cold’ (which survived into the modern era in northern dialects) and ‘dying from hunger’.
=> starch, stare, stork
tinker: tinker: [13] Etymologically, a tinker is probably a ‘worker in tin’. It could well be descended from an unrecorded Old English *tinecere, a plausible derivative of tin. There is an alternative possibility, however: it may have been derived from the now obsolete verb tink ‘tinkle’ (which, like tinkle [14] itself, was of imitative origin), in allusion to the metallic sounds made by tinkers repairing pots (northern and Scottish dialects had the word tinkler for ‘tinker’).
tip: tip: English has three distinct words tip, two of them possibly related. Tip ‘extremity’ [15] was probably borrowed from Old Norse typpi. This was descended from prehistoric Germanic *tupp- ‘upper extremity’ (source also of English top and toupee). Tip ‘touch lightly’ [13] (as in ‘tip-and-run cricket’) may have been borrowed from Low German tippen, although it could be the same word as tip ‘extremity’ (from the notion of ‘just touching something with the tip of something else’).

It was used in 17th-century underworld argot for ‘give’ (as in ‘tip someone the wink’), and this evolved in the 18th century to ‘give a gratuity’. The antecedents of tip ‘overturn’ [14] (originally tipe) are not known, although the fact that it first appeared in northern dialects suggests that it may have been borrowed from a Scandinavian language. The derived tipsy [16] denotes etymologically ‘liable to fall over’.
=> top, toupee; tipsy
yet: yet: [OE] Yet is one of the mystery words of English. It seems to have emerged from the Anglo-Frisian group of dialects in northeastern Europe before the Angles and Saxons crossed the Channel (Old Frisian had iēta), but its ultimate source is unknown.
alder (n.): tree related to the birch, Old English alor "alder" (with intrusive -d- added 14c.; the historical form aller survived until 18c. in literary English and persists in dialects, such as Lancashire owler, which is partly from Norse), from Proto-Germanic *aliso (cognates: Old Norse ölr, Danish elle, Swedish al, Dutch els, German erle), from *el-, the ancient PIE name of the tree (cognates: Russian olicha, Polish olcha, Latin alnus, Lithuanian alksnis).
any (adj.): Old English ænig "any, anyone," literally "one-y," from Proto-Germanic *ainagas (cognates: Old Saxon enig, Old Norse einigr, Old Frisian enich, Dutch enig, German einig), from PIE *oi-no- "one, unique" (see one). The -y may have diminutive force here.

Emphatic form any old ______ (British variant: any bloody ______) is recorded from 1896. At any rate is recorded from 1847. Among the large family of compounds beginning with any-, anykyn "any kind" (c. 1300) did not survive, and Anywhen (1831) is rarely used, but OED calls it "common in Southern [British] dialects."
blow (n.1): "hard hit," mid-15c., blowe, from northern and East Midlands dialects, perhaps from Middle Dutch blouwen "to beat," a common Germanic word of unknown origin (compare German bleuen, Gothic bliggwan "to strike"). Influenced in English by blow (v.1). In reference to descriptions or accounts, blow-by-blow is recorded from 1921, American English, originally of prize-fight broadcasts.
LIKE a hungry kitten loves its saucer of warm milk, so do radio fans joyfully listen to the blow-by-blow broadcast description of a boxing bout. ["The Wireless Age," December 1922]
blue (1): c. 1300, bleu, blwe, etc., from Old French blo "pale, pallid, wan, light-colored; blond; discolored; blue, blue-gray," from Frankish *blao or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *blæwaz (cognates: Old English blaw, Old Saxon and Old High German blao, Danish blaa, Swedish blå, Old Frisian blau, Middle Dutch bla, Dutch blauw, German blau "blue"), from PIE *bhle-was "light-colored, blue, blond, yellow," from PIE root bhel- (1) "to shine, flash" (see bleach (v.)).

The same PIE root yielded Latin flavus "yellow," Old Spanish blavo "yellowish-gray," Greek phalos "white," Welsh blawr "gray," Old Norse bla "livid" (the meaning in black and blue), showing the usual slippery definition of color words in Indo-European The present spelling is since 16c., from French influence (Modern French bleu).
The exact color to which the Gmc. term applies varies in the older dialects; M.H.G. bla is also 'yellow,' whereas the Scandinavian words may refer esp. to a deep, swarthy black, e.g. O.N. blamaðr, N.Icel. blamaður 'Negro' [Buck]

Few words enter more largely into the composition of slang, and colloquialisms bordering on slang, than does the word BLUE. Expressive alike of the utmost contempt, as of all that men hold dearest and love best, its manifold combinations, in ever varying shades of meaning, greet the philologist at every turn. [John S. Farmer, "Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present," 1890, p.252]
The color of constancy since Chaucer at least, but apparently for no deeper reason than the rhyme in true blue (c. 1500). From early times blue was the distinctive color of the dress of servants, which may be the reason police uniforms are blue, a tradition Farmer dates to Elizabethan times. For blue ribbon see cordon bleu under cordon. Blue whale attested from 1851, so called for its color. The flower name blue bell is recorded by 1570s. Blue streak, of something resembling a bolt of lightning (for quickness, intensity, etc.) is from 1830, U.S. Western slang.

Many Indo-European languages seem to have had a word to describe the color of the sea, encompasing blue and green and gray; such as Irish glass (see Chloe); Old English hæwen "blue, gray," related to har (see hoar); Serbo-Croatian sinji "gray-blue, sea-green;" Lithuanian šyvas, Russian sivyj "gray."
bull (n.1): "bovine male animal," from Old English bula "a bull, a steer," or Old Norse boli "bull," both from Proto-Germanic *bullon- (cognates: Middle Dutch bulle, Dutch bul, German Bulle), perhaps from a Germanic verbal stem meaning "to roar," which survives in some German dialects and perhaps in the first element of boulder (q.v.). The other possibility [Watkins] is that the Germanic root is from PIE *bhln-, from root *bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell" (see bole).

An uncastrated male, reared for breeding, as opposed to a bullock or steer. Extended after 1610s to males of other large animals (elephant, alligator, whale, etc.). Stock market sense is from 1714 (see bear (n.)). Meaning "policeman" attested by 1859. Figurative phrase to take the bull by the horns first recorded 1711. To be a bull in a china shop, figurative of careless and inappropriate use of force, attested from 1812 and was the title of a popular humorous song in 1820s England. Bull-baiting attested from 1570s.
ch: digraph used in Old French for the "tsh" sound. In some French dialects, including that of Paris (but not that of Picardy), Latin ca- became French "tsha." This was introduced to English after the Norman Conquest, in words borrowed from Old French such as chaste, charity, chief (adj.). Under French influence, -ch- also was inserted into Anglo-Saxon words that had the same sound (such as bleach, chest, church) which in Old English still was written with a simple -c-, and into those that had formerly been spelled with a -c- and pronounced "k" such as chin and much.

As French evolved, the "t" sound dropped out of it, so in later loan-words from France ch- has only the sound "sh-" (chauffeur, machine (n.), chivalry, etc.).

It turns up as well in words from classical languages (chaos, echo, etc.). Most uses of -ch- in Roman Latin were in words from Greek, which would be pronounced correctly as "k" + "h," as in blockhead, but most Romans would have said merely "k." Sometimes ch- is written to keep -c- hard before a front vowel, as still in modern Italian.

In some languages (Welsh, Spanish, Czech) ch- can be treated as a separate letter and words in it are alphabetized after -c- (or, in Czech and Slovak, after -h-). The sound also is heard in more distant languages (as in cheetah, chintz), and the digraph also is used to represent the sound in Scottish loch.
chi (n.): 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet, representing a -kh- sound (see ch). The letter is shaped like an X, and so the Greek letter name was used figuratively to signify such a shape or arrangement (as in khiasma "two things placed crosswise;" khiastos "arranged diagonally; marked with an X;" khiazein "to mark with an 'X', to write the letter 'X'"). Some dialects used chi to represent the -ks- sound properly belonging to xi; Latin picked this up and the sound value of chi in Latin-derived alphabets is now that of English X.
cobweb (n.): early 14c., coppewebbe; the first element is Old English -coppe, in atorcoppe "spider," literally "poison-head" (see attercop). Spelling with -b- is from 16c., perhaps from cob. Cob as a stand-alone for "a spider" was an old word nearly dead even in dialects when J.R.R. Tolkien used it in "The Hobbit" (1937).
crummy (adj.): 1560s, "easily crumbled;" 1570s, "like bread," from crumb + -y (2). The second sense probably accounts for 18c. (and later in dialects) use, of a woman, "attractively plump, full-figured, buxom." Slang meaning "shoddy, filthy, inferior, poorly made" in use by 1859, probably is from the first sense, but influenced by crumb in its slang sense of "louse."
cun (v.): "to learn to know, inquire into," from Old English cunnian "to learn to know," ultimately from the same ancient root as can (v.1). Surviving into 17c. and perhaps later in dialects.
Dakota: 1809, name of a group of native peoples from the Plains states speaking a Siouan language, from Dakota dakhota "friendly" (the name often is translated as "allies"). Recorded by Lewis and Clark (1804) as Dar co tar; in western dialects of the Teton subgroup, Lakota, Lakhota; in Assiniboine dialect, Nakota, Nakhota.
deafen (v.): 1590s, "to make deaf," from deaf + -en (1). The earlier verb was simply deaf (mid-15c.). For "to become deaf, to grow deaf," Old English had adeafian (intransitive), which survived into Middle English as deave but then took on a transitive sense from mid-14c. and sank from use except in dialects (where it mostly has transitive and figurative senses), leaving English without an intransitive verb here.
Doric (adj.): 1560s, see Dorian; in reference to the architectural order, 1610s. The Doric dialect in ancient Greek theater was broad and rustic, hence it has been applied in English to northern and Scots dialects (1837).
fickle (adj.): c. 1200, "false, treacherous, deceptive, deceitful, crafty" (obsolete), probably from Old English ficol "deceitful, cunning, tricky," related to befician "deceive," and to facen "deceit, treachery; blemish, fault." Common Germanic (compare Old Saxon fekan "deceit," Old High German feihhan "deceit, fraud, treachery"), from PIE *peig- (2) "evil-minded, treacherous, hostile" (see foe).

Sense of "changeable, inconstant, unstable" is from c. 1300 (especially of Fortune and women). Related: Fickleness. Fickly (c. 1300) is rare or obsolete. Also with a verb form in Middle English, fikelen "to deceive, flatter," later "to puzzle, perplex," which survived long enough in Northern dialects to get into Scott's novels. Fikel-tonge (late 14c.) was an allegorical or character name for "one who speaks falsehoods."
fly (v.2): "run away," Old English fleon, flion "fly from, avoid, escape;" essentially a variant spelling of flee (q.v.). In Old English, this verb and fleogan "soar through the air with wings" (modern fly (v.1)) differed only in their present tense forms and often were confused, then as now. In some Middle English dialects they seem to have merged completely. Distinguished from one another since 14c. in the past tense: flew for fly (v.1), fled for fly (v.2).
frog (n.1): Old English frogga "frog," a diminutive of frosc, forsc, frox "frog," a common Germanic word but with different formations that are difficult to explain (cognates: Old Norse froskr, Middle Dutch vorsc, German Frosch "frog"), probably literally "hopper," from PIE root *preu- "to hop" (cognates: Sanskrit provate "hops," Russian prygat "to hop, jump"). Watkins calls the Old English -gga an "obscure expressive suffix."

The Latin word for it (rana) is imitative of croaking. Also in Middle English as frok, vrogge, frugge, and with sometimes plural form froggen. Collateral Middle English forms frude, froud are from Old Norse frauðr "frog," and native alternative form frosk "frog" survived in English dialects into the 19c.
I always eat fricasseed frogs regretfully; they remind one so much of miniature human thighs, and make one feel cannibalistic and horrid .... [H. Ellen Brown, "A Girl's Wanderings in Hungary," 1896]
As a British derogatory term for "Frenchman," 1778 (short for frog-eater), but before that (1650s) it meant "Dutch" (from frog-land "marshy land," in reference to their country). To have a frog in the throat "be hoarse" is from 1892, from frog as a name for a lump or swelling in the mouth (1650s) or throat infections causing a croaking sound.
German (n.): "a native of Germany," 1520s, from Latin Germanus (adjective and noun, plural Germani), first attested in writings of Julius Caesar, who used Germani to designate a group of tribes in northeastern Gaul, of unknown origin. Probably originally the name of an individual tribe, but Gaulish (Celtic) origins have been proposed, from words perhaps originally meaning "noisy" (compare Old Irish garim "to shout") or "neighbor" (compare Old Irish gair "neighbor"). Middle English had Germayns (plural, late 14c.), but only in the sense "ancient Teuton, member of the Germanic tribes." The earlier English word was Almain (early 14c.; see Alemanni) or Dutch.
Þe empere passede from þe Grees to þe Frenschemen and to þe Germans, þat beeþ Almayns. [John of Trevisa, translation of Higdon's Polychronicon, 1387]
Their name for themselves, die Deutschen (see Dutch), dates from 12c. Roman writers also used Teutoni as a German tribal name, and writers in Latin after about 875 commonly refer to the German language as teutonicus (see Teutonic). Meaning "the German language" in English is from 1748. High German (1823 in English) and Low German as a division of dialects is geographical: High German (from 16c. established as the literary language) was the German spoken in the upland regions in southern Germany, Low German (often including Dutch, Frisian, Flemish), also called Plattdeutsch was spoken in the regions near the North Sea. In the U.S. German also was used of descendants of settlers from Germany.
hustle (v.): 1680s, "to shake to and fro" (especially of money in a cap, as part of a game called hustle-cap), metathesized from Dutch hutselen, husseln "to shake, to toss," frequentative of hutsen, variant of hotsen "to shake." "The stems hot-, hut- appear in a number of formations in both High and Low German dialects, all implying a shaking movement" [OED]. Related: Hustled; hustling. Meaning "push roughly, shove" first recorded 1751. That of "hurry, move quickly" is from 1812.
The key-note and countersign of life in these cities [of the U.S. West] is the word "hustle." We have caught it in the East. but we use it humorously, just as we once used the Southern word "skedaddle," but out West the word hustle is not only a serious term, it is the most serious in the language. [Julian Ralph, "Our Great West," N.Y., 1893]
Sense of "to get in a quick, illegal manner" is 1840 in American English; that of "to sell goods aggressively" is 1887.
I (pron.): 12c. shortening of Old English ic, first person singular nominative pronoun, from Proto-Germanic *ek/*ik (cognates: Old Frisian ik, Old Norse ek, Norwegian eg, Danish jeg, Old High German ih, German ich, Gothic ik), from PIE *eg-, nominative form of the first person singular pronoun (cognates: Sanskrit aham, Hittite uk, Latin ego (source of French Je), Greek ego, Russian ja, Lithuanian aš). Reduced to i by mid-12c. in northern England, it began to be capitalized mid-13c. to mark it as a distinct word and avoid misreading in handwritten manuscripts.
The reason for writing I is ... the orthographic habit in the middle ages of using a 'long i' (that is, j or I) whenever the letter was isolated or formed the last letter of a group; the numeral 'one' was written j or I (and three iij, etc.), just as much as the pronoun. [Otto Jespersen, "Growth and Structure of the English Language," p.233]
The form ich or ik, especially before vowels, lingered in northern England until c. 1400 and survived in southern dialects until 18c. The dot on the "small" letter -i- began to appear in 11c. Latin manuscripts, to distinguish the letter from the stroke of another letter (such as -m- or -n-). Originally a diacritic, it was reduced to a dot with the introduction of Roman type fonts. The letter -y- also was written with a top dot in Old English and early Middle English, when it tended to be written with a closed loop at the top and thus was almost indistinguishable from the lower-case thorn (þ).
jump (v.): 1520s, perhaps imitative (compare bump); another theory derives it from words in Gallo-Roman dialects of southwestern France (compare jumba "to rock, to balance, swing," yumpa "to rock"), picked up during English occupation in Hundred Years War. Superseded native leap, bound, and spring in most senses. Meaning "to attack" is from 1789; that of "to do the sex act with" is from 1630s. Related: Jumped; jumping. To jump to a conclusion is from 1704. Jumping-rope is from 1805. Jump in a lake "go away and stop being a pest" attested from 1912.