英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

binnacle [binnacle 词源字典]: binnacle: [15] Binnacle ‘ship’s compass housing’ has a curious history: etymologically it means ‘place where something lives’, and it is related to habitation and inhabit. Forms with -nn- do not begin to appear before the 18th century. Until then the word had been bittacle, which came from Spanish bitácula. A close relative of the Spanish word, French habitacle, gives a clue to its ultimate provenance in Latin habitāculum, a derivative of habitāre ‘inhabit’.
[binnacle etymology, binnacle origin, 英语词源]
bitter: bitter: [OE] Old English biter appears to have come from *bit-, the short-vowel version of *bīt-, source of bite. Its original meaning would thus have been ‘biting’, and although there do not seem to be any traces of this left in the historical record, the sense development to ‘acrid-tasting’ is fairly straightforward (compare the similar case of sharp).

It seems likely that the bitter of ‘bitter end’ comes from a different source altogether, although in its current meaning it appears to have been influenced by the adjective bitter. A bitter was originally a ‘turn of a cable round the bitts’, and a bitt was a ‘post on the deck of a ship for fastening cables to’. It is not clear where bitt came from, although it was probably originally a seafarer’s term from the north German coast, and it may be related to English boat.

Thus in the first instance ‘to the bitter end’ probably meant ‘to the very end, as far as it is possible to go’.
=> bite
bold: bold: [OE] In Old English, bold meant simply ‘brave’; the modern connotations of immodesty or presumptuousness do not seem to have developed until the 12th century. The word goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *balthaz, based ultimately, it has been speculated, on Indo- European *bhel- ‘swell’ (the psychological link through ‘being puffed up’ via ‘adventurous courage’ to ‘audacity’ is scarcely far-fetched). If this is so it would mean bold is related to bellows, belly, billow, bolster, and possibly bellow and bell. The notion of impetuosity is perhaps retained in the related German bald ‘soon’.
=> bell, bellows, belly, billow, bolster
boss: boss: English has two words boss, of which the more familiar is far more recent; both are fairly obscure in origin. We know that boss ‘chief’ [19] comes from Dutch baas ‘master’ (it was introduced to American English by Dutch settlers), but where Dutch got the word from we do not know for certain. Boss ‘protuberance’ [13] was borrowed from Old French boce, which comes from an assumed general Romance *botja, but there the trail goes cold. Boss-eyed [19] and boss shot ‘bungled attempt’ [19] are both usually assumed to come from, or at least be connected with a 19thcentury English dialect verb boss ‘bungle’, of unknown origin.
brute: brute: [15] The primordial meaning of brute appears to be ‘heavy’. It comes from Latin brūtus ‘heavy’, and it has been speculated that it is related to Latin grāvis ‘heavy’ (from which English gets grave, gravity, and grieve). In Latin the sense ‘heavy’ had already progressed to ‘stupid’, and it later developed to ‘of the lower animals’. It was with this meaning that the word reached English via French. Connotations of ‘cruelty’ do not begin to appear until the 17th century. Brut meaning ‘very dry’ in relation to champagne is a late 19th-century borrowing of the French adjectival form brut, literally ‘rough’.
budget: budget: [15] Originally, a budget was a ‘pouch’. English got the word from Old French bougette, which was a diminutive form of bouge ‘leather bag’ (from which we get bulge). This came from Latin bulga, which may have been of Gaulish origin (medieval Irish bolg ‘bag’ has been compared). The word’s financial connotations arose in the 18th century, the original notion being that the government minister concerned with treasury affairs opened his budget, or wallet, to reveal what fiscal measures he had in mind.

The first reference to the expression occurs in a pamphlet called The budget opened 1733 directed against Sir Robert Walpole: ‘And how is this to be done? Why by an Alteration only of the present Method of collecting the publick Revenues … So then, out it comes at last. The Budget is opened; and our State Empirick hath dispensed his packets by his Zany Couriers through all parts of the Kingdom … I do not pretend to understand this Art of political Legerdemain’.

The earliest recorded use of the word non-satirically in this sense seems to be from 1764.
=> bulge
bunting: bunting: Bunting ‘bird’ [13] and bunting ‘flags’ [18] are presumably two distinct words, although in neither case do we really know where they come from. There was a now obsolete English adjective bunting, first recorded in the 16th century, which meant ‘plump, rounded, short and thick’ (could a subliminal memory of it have been in Frank Richards’s mind when he named Billy Bunter?).

Perhaps the small plump bird, the bunting, was called after this. The adjective probably came from an obsolete verb bunt, which meant (of a sail) ‘swell, billow’, but since we do not know where that came from, it does not get us very much further. As for bunting ‘flags’, the word originally referred to a loosely woven fabric from which they were made, and it has been conjectured that it came from the English dialect verb bunt ‘sift’, such cloth having perhaps once been used for sifting flour.
ego: ego: [19] Ego is Latin for ‘I’ (and comes in fact from the same Indo-European base as produced English I). English originally acquired it in the early 19th century as a philosophical term for the ‘conscious self’, and the more familiar modern uses – ‘self-esteem’, or more derogatorily ‘selfimportance’, and the psychologist’s term (taken up by Freud) for the ‘conscious self’ – date from the end of the century.

Derivatives include egoism [18], borrowed from French égoïsme, and egotism [18], perhaps deliberately coined with the t to distinguish it from egoism. And the acquisitions do not end there: alter ego, literally ‘other I, second self’, was borrowed in the 16th century, and the Freudian term superego, ‘beyond I’, entered the language in the 1920s.
=> i
ignore: ignore: [17] The Latin verb for ‘not know’, and hence ‘disregard’, was īgnōrāre, which was formed with a negative prefix from the stem gnō- ‘know’ (ultimate source also of English narrate). From it English got ignore, and from its derivative īgnōrantia the noun ignorance [13]. Its first person present plural was īgnōrāmus ‘we do not know’. This was originally used in English in the 16th century as a legal term, in the sense ‘we ignore’, used by a Grand Jury in rejecting an indictment for lack of evidence. Not until the early 17th century was it applied to an ‘ignorant person’.
=> narrate
limbo: limbo: English has two distinct and probably unrelated words limbo. By far the older is the theological limbo [14], referring originally to that condition in which the souls of the dead exist that are neither in heaven nor in hell. It comes from Latin limbus ‘border, edge’, which in the Middle Ages was used to refer to a region on the borders of, but not actually inside, hell.

It very often turned up in the ablative case, in the phrase in limbo, which is how English adopted it. The other limbo [20], denoting a West Indian dance that involves passing underneath a progressively lowered bar, probably comes from limber ‘flexible, supple’ [16], which in turn might be from limb or possibly from limber ‘detachable forward part of a gun-carriage’ [15] (although spellings of that with a b do not occur before the 17th century).

No one knows where that limber came from, although it might ultimately be Celtic. Alternatively, if the bar is viewed as a sort of boundary that the dancer must cross, the terpsichorean limbo could be related to the theological limbo.
pidgin: pidgin: [19] A pidgin is a reduced form of language used for communication between speech communities which do not share the same native language. A characteristic of such languages is that words in the base language from which the pidgin evolved become altered. And this is how the word pidgin itself arose. It comes from pidgin English, an alteration of business English in the commercial pidgin used in Far Eastern ports in the mid-19th century.
=> business
sodomy: sodomy: [13] The term sodomy commemorates the ancient Palestinian city of Sodom, which according to the Bible was a hotbed of unnatural vice (‘But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter. And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him. And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof’, Genesis 19:4–8). Anal intercourse and allied practices were known in late Latin as peccātum Sodomīticum ‘sin of Sodom’, and from this was coined the medieval Latin term sodomia – whence English sodomy.

The abusive sod [19] is short for the related sodomite [14].
stretch: stretch: [OE] Stretch comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *strakkjan (source also of German strecken and Dutch strekken). This was formed from a base *strak-, which probably also produced English straggle [14]. It is not certain where *strak- came from, but probably it was an alteration of *strak- ‘rigid’ (source of English starch and stark).

Reversal of speech sounds (here a and r) is quite common; the process is known as metathesis. The notions of ‘rigidity’ and ‘stretching’ do not appear very compatible at first sight, but it is thought that the original application of stretch was to ‘stretching the limbs’, in the sense of making them straight or ‘stiff’. Straight comes from a former past participle of stretch.
=> straggle, straight
willy-nilly: willy-nilly: [17] Willy-nilly originated in the expression will I, nill I, literally ‘whether I wish it or do not wish it’ (nill ‘be unwilling’, long defunct as an independent verb, was formed from will and the negative prefix ne-)
agnosticism (n.): 1870, from agnostic + -ism.
The agnostic does not simply say, "I do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Reply to Dr. Lyman Abbott," 1890]
Anabaptist (n.): 1530s, "one who baptizes over again," from Modern Latin anabaptista, from Latin anabaptismus "second baptism" (used in literal sense from 4c.; see anabaptism).

Originally in English in reference to sect that practiced adult baptism and arose in Germany 1521. Probably so called because, as a new faith, they baptized converts who already had been baptized (as infants) in the older Christian churches. Modern branches only baptize once (adults) and do not actively seek converts. The name also was applied, usually opprobriously, to Baptists, perhaps due to the multiple immersions of their baptisms.
artery (n.): late 14c., from Anglo-French arterie, Old French artaire (13c.; Modern French artère), and directly from Latin arteria, from Greek arteria "windpipe," also "an artery," as distinct from a vein; related to aeirein "to raise" (see aorta).

They were regarded by the ancients as air ducts because the arteries do not contain blood after death; medieval writers took them for the channels of the "vital spirits," and 16c. senses of artery in English include "trachea, windpipe." The word is used in reference to artery-like systems of major rivers from 1805; of railways from 1850.
autocar (n.): 1895, from auto- + car.
Which is it to be? We observe that the London Times has lent the weight of its authority to the word "autocar," which it now prints without the significant inverted commas but with a hyphen, "auto-car." We believe that the vocable originated with a journal called the Hardwareman, which succeeded in obtaining the powerful support of the Engineer for its offspring. As for ourselves, being linguistic purists, we do not care for hybrid constructions--"auto" is Greek, while "car" is Latin and Celtic. At the same time, such clumsy phrases as "horseless carriages," "mechanical road carriages," and "self-propelled vehicles" are not meeting with general favour. Why not therefore adopt the philogically sound "motor-car," which could be run into a single word, "motorcar"? ["The Electrical Engineer," Dec. 20, 1895]
clam (n.): bivalve mollusk, c. 1500, in clam-shell, originally Scottish, apparently a particular use from Middle English clam "pincers, vice, clamp" (late 14c.), from Old English clamm "bond, fetter, grip, grasp," from Proto-Germanic *klam- "to press or squeeze together" (cognates: Old High German klamma "cramp, fetter, constriction," German Klamm "a constriction"). If this is right then the original reference is to the shell. Clam-chowder attested from 1822. To be happy as a clam is from 1833, but the earliest uses do not elaborate on the notion behind it, unless it be self-containment.
Confucius: 1837, Latinization of Chinese K'ung Fu-tzu "K'ung the philosopher (or Master)" (c. 551 B.C.E.-c. 479 B.C.E.). The name first appears in a Latin publication of Chinese works (Paris, 1687). Connection with the martial arts kung-fu is obscure, uncertain. His philosophy based on the Golden Rule: "What you do not like when done to yourself do not do to others." Related: Confucian (adj., 1837); Confucianism (1846).
don't: contraction of do not, recorded from 1630s.
fuck (v.): "to have sexual intercourse with" (transitive), until recently a difficult word to trace in usage, in part because it was omitted as taboo by the editors of the original OED when the "F" entries were compiled (1893-97). Johnson also had excluded the word, and fuck wasn't in a single English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965. "The Penguin Dictionary" broke the taboo in the latter year. Houghton Mifflin followed, in 1969, with "The American Heritage Dictionary," but it also published a "Clean Green" edition without the word, to assure itself access to the public high school market.

Written form attested from early 16c.; OED 2nd edition cites 1503, in the form fukkit, and the earliest attested appearance of current spelling is 1535 ("Bischops ... may fuck thair fill and be vnmaryit" [Sir David Lyndesay, "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits"]). Presumably it is a more ancient word, but one not written in the kind of texts that have survived from Old English and Middle English. Buck cites proper name John le Fucker from 1278, but that surname could have other explanations. The word apparently is hinted at in a scurrilous 15c. poem, titled "Flen flyys," written in bastard Latin and Middle English. The relevant line reads:
Non sunt in celi
quia fuccant uuiuys of heli
"They [the monks] are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of [the town of] Ely." Fuccant is pseudo-Latin, and in the original it is written in cipher. The earliest examples of the word otherwise are from Scottish, which suggests a Scandinavian origin, perhaps from a word akin to Norwegian dialectal fukka "copulate," or Swedish dialectal focka "copulate, strike, push," and fock "penis." Another theory traces the Modern English verb to Middle English fyke, fike "move restlessly, fidget" (see fike) which also meant "dally, flirt," and probably is from a general North Sea Germanic word (compare Middle Dutch fokken, German ficken "fuck," earlier "make quick movements to and fro, flick," still earlier "itch, scratch;" the vulgar sense attested from 16c.). This would parallel in sense the vulgar Middle English term for "have sexual intercourse," swive, from Old English swifan "to move lightly over, sweep" (see swivel). But OED remarks that these "cannot be shown to be related" to the English word. Liberman has this to say:
Germanic words of similar form (f + vowel + consonant) and meaning 'copulate' are numerous. One of them is G. ficken. They often have additional senses, especially 'cheat,' but their basic meaning is 'move back and forth.' ... Most probably, fuck is a borrowing from Low German and has no cognates outside Germanic.
Chronology and phonology rule out Shipley's attempt to derive it from Middle English firk "to press hard, beat." The unkillable urban legend that this word is an acronym of some sort (a fiction traceable on the Internet to 1995 but probably predating that), and the "pluck yew" fable, are results of ingenious trifling (also see here). The Old English verb for "have sexual intercourse with" was hæman, from ham "dwelling, home," with a sense of "take home, co-habit." French foutre and Italian fottere seem to resemble the English word but are unrelated, descending rather from Latin futuere, which perhaps is from PIE root *bhau(t)- "knock, strike off," extended via a figurative use "from the sexual application of violent action" [Shipley; compare the sexual slang use of bang, etc.].

Fuck was outlawed in print in England (by the Obscene Publications Act, 1857) and the U.S. (by the Comstock Act, 1873). The word continued in common speech, however. During World War I: "It became so common that an effective way for the soldier to express this emotion was to omit this word. Thus if a sergeant said, 'Get your ----ing rifles!' it was understood as a matter of routine. But if he said 'Get your rifles!' there was an immediate implication of urgency and danger." [John Brophy, "Songs and Slang of the British Soldier: 1914-1918," pub. 1930]. The legal barriers against use in print broke down in mid-20c. with the "Ulysses" decision (U.S., 1933) and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960). The major breakthrough in publication was James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" (1950), with 50 fucks (down from 258 in the original manuscript).

The abbreviation F (or eff) probably began as euphemistic, but by 1943 it was regarded as a cuss word in its own right. In 1948, the publishers of "The Naked and the Dead" persuaded Norman Mailer to use the euphemism fug. When Mailer later was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, "So you're the man who can't spell 'fuck' " [The quip sometimes is attributed to Tallulah Bankhead]. Hemingway used muck in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940). Related: Fucked; fucking. Fuck-all "nothing" first recorded 1960. Verbal phrase fuck up "to ruin, spoil, destroy" is attested from c. 1916. A widespread group of Slavic words (such as Polish pierdolić) can mean both "fornicate" and "make a mistake." Fuck off attested from 1929; as a command to depart, by 1944. Egyptian legal agreements from the 23rd Dynasty (749-21 B.C.E.) frequently include the phrase, "If you do not obey this decree, may a donkey copulate with you!" [Reinhold Aman, "Maledicta," Summer 1977].
glow-worm (n.): early 14c., from glow (v.) + worm (n.). Actually the wingless female form of a beetle (Lampyris noctiluca). The males have wings but do not glow.
golden (adj.): c. 1300, "made of gold," from gold (n.) + -en (2); replacing Middle English gilden, from Old English gyldan. Gold is one of the few Modern English nouns that form adjectives meaning "made of ______" by adding -en (as in wooden, leaden, waxen, olden); those that survive often do so in specialized senses. Old English also had silfren "made of silver," stænen "made of stone," etc.

From late 14c. as "of the color of gold." Figurative sense of "excellent, precious, best, most valuable" is from late 14c.; that of "favorable, auspicious" is from c. 1600. Golden mean "avoidance of excess" translates Latin aurea mediocritas (Horace). Golden age "period of past perfection" is from 1550s, from a concept found in Greek and Latin writers; in sense of "old age" it is recorded from 1961. San Francisco Bay's entrance channel was called the Golden Gate by John C. Fremont (1866). The moralistic golden rule earlier was the golden law (1670s).
Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them [Matt. vii:12]

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. [George Bernard Shaw, 1898]
grade (n.): 1510s, "degree of measurement," from French grade "grade, degree" (16c.), from Latin gradus "step, pace, gait, walk; step on a ladder or stair;" figuratively "a step, stage, degree," from gradi (past participle gressus) "to walk, step, go," from PIE *ghredh- "to walk, go" (cognates: Lithuanian gridiju "to go, wander," Old Church Slavonic gredo "to come," Old Irish in-greinn "he pursues," and second element in congress, progress, etc.). Replaced Middle English gree "step, degree in a series," from Old French grei "step," from Latin gradus.

Meaning "inclination of a road or railroad" is from 1811. Meaning "class of things having the same quality or value" is from 1807; meaning "division of a school curriculum equivalent to one year" is from 1835; that of "letter-mark indicating assessment of a student's work" is from 1886 (earlier used of numerical grades). Grade A "top quality, fit for human consumption" (originally of milk) is from a U.S. system instituted in 1912. To figuratively make the grade "be successful" is from 1912; early examples do not make clear whether the literal grade in mind was one of elevation, quality, or scholarship.
hamstring (v.): 1640s, "to disable, render useless," a figurative verbal extension from hamstring (n.) "tendon at the back of the knee." Cutting this would render a person or animal lame. Literal sense of the verb is attested from 1670s. Since it is a verb from a noun-noun compound, hamstrung as a past participle is technically incorrect.
[I]n hamstring, -string is not the verb string; we do not string the ham, but do something to the tendon called the hamstring; the verb, that is, is made not from the two words ham & string, but from the noun hamstring. It must therefore make hamstringed. [Fowler]
hare (n.): Old English hara "hare," from West Germanic *hasan- (cognates: Old Frisian hasa, Middle Dutch haese, Dutch haas, Old High German haso, German Hase), of uncertain origin; possibly the original sense was "gray" (compare Old English hasu, Old High German hasan "gray"), from PIE *kas- "gray" (cognates: Latin canus "white, gray, gray-haired"). Perhaps cognate with Sanskrit sasah, Afghan soe, Welsh ceinach "hare." Rabbits burrow in the ground; hares do not.
þou hast a crokyd tunge heldyng wyth hownd and wyth hare. ["Jacob's Well," c. 1440]
hay fever (n.): also hay-fever, 1825, from hay + fever. Also called summer catarrh (1828); not much noted before the 1820s, when it was sometimes derided as a "fashion" in disease.
People are apt to sneeze, in hot weather for example; and people do not die of sneezing now-a-days, as they did in days that no one knows any thing about. We cannot give six draughts a-day, at one and nine pence each, for sneezing: call it the hay-fever. What a wonderful man! what a clever man! he understands the hay-fever: call him in! Thus is the hay-fever among the last in the list of fashionables. ["On Fashions in Physic," London Magazine, October 1825]
hello: 1883, alteration of hallo, itself an alteration of holla, hollo, a shout to attract attention, which seems to go back to at least c. 1400. Perhaps from holla! "stop, cease." OED cites Old High German hala, hola, emphatic imperative of halon, holon "to fetch," "used especially in hailing a ferryman." Fowler lists halloo, hallo, halloa, halloo, hello, hillo, hilloa, holla, holler, hollo, holloa, hollow, hullo, and writes, "The multiplicity of forms is bewildering ...." Popularity as a greeting coincides with use of the telephone, where it won out over Alexander Graham Bell's suggestion, ahoy. Central telephone exchange operators were known as hello-girls (1889).
Hello, formerly an Americanism, is now nearly as common as hullo in Britain (Say who you are; do not just say 'hello' is the warning given in our telephone directories) and the Englishman cannot be expected to give up the right to say hello if he likes it better than his native hullo. [H.W. Fowler, "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage," 1926]
higher: comparative of high (adj.), Old English. Higher education is attested by 1839.
The French distinguish l'instruction secondaire, which includes what we term a liberal education, from l'instruction supérieure, which denotes professional education; but I do not think the corresponding English phrases are used with this distinction. [William Whewell, "Of a Liberal Education in General," 1850]
Higher-up (n.) "one in a superior post" is from 1905, American English.
hillbilly (n.): "southern Appalachian U.S. resident," by 1892, from hill + masc. proper name Billy/Billie.
Then again, I do not think It will do so well. I would hate to see some old railroad man come here and take my job, and then, I don t think It is right to hire some Hill Billy and give him the same right as I just because he was hired the same time I was. ["The Railroad Trainmen's Journal," vol. IX, July 1892]

In short, a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammelled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires of his revolver as the fancy takes him. ["New York Journal," April 23, 1900]
In reference to a type of folk music, first attested 1924.
Hobbit (n.): 1937, coined in the fantasy tales of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973).
On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' I did not and do not know why. [Tolkien, letter to W.H. Auden, dated 1955]
The word also turns up in a very long list of folkloric supernatural creatures in the writings of Michael Aislabie Denham (d.1859), printed in volume 2 of "The Denham Tracts" [ed. James Hardy, London: Folklore Society, 1895], a compilation of Denham's scattered publications. Denham was an early folklorist who concentrated on Northumberland, Durham, Westmoreland, Cumberland, the Isle of Man, and Scotland.
What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, specters, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks necks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins Gyre-carling, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost. Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!
[Emphasis added] It is curious that the name occurs nowhere else in folklore, and there is no evidence that Tolkien ever saw this. The word also was recorded from 1835 as "a term generally used in Wales to express a quantity made up of four Welsh pecks." Hobbitry attested from 1947.
hold-out (n.): one who abstains or refrains when others do not, by 1911, from verbal expression hold out; see hold (v.) + out. Earlier as the name of a card-sharper's device (1893).
homogamy (n.): 1805, "condition of bearing flowers that do not differ sexually," from homo- (1) "same" + -gamy.
hoochy koochy (n.): also hoochie-coochie, hootchy kootchy, "erotic suggestive women's dance" (involving a lot of hip-grinding), 1898, of obscure origin, usually associated, without evidence, with the Chicago world's fair of 1893 and belly-dancer Little Egypt (who might not even have been there), but the word itself is attested from 1890, as the stage name of minstrel singer "Hoochy-Coochy Rice," and the chorus of the popular minstrel song "The Ham-Fat Man" (by 1856) contains the nonsense phrase "Hoochee, kouchee, kouchee."
To-day, however, in place of the danse du ventre or the coochie-coochie we have the loop-the-loop or the razzle-dazzle, which latter, while not exactly edifying at least do not serve to deprave public taste. ["The Redemption of 'Old Coney,'" in "Broadway Magazine," April 1904]
ignoramus (n.): 1570s, from an Anglo-French legal term (early 15c.), from Latin ignoramus "we do not know," first person present indicative of ignorare "not to know" (see ignorant). The legal term was one a grand jury could write on a bill when it considered the prosecution's evidence insufficient. Sense of "ignorant person" came from the title role of George Ruggle's 1615 play satirizing the ignorance of common lawyers.
individualism (n.): "self-centered feeling," 1827, from individual + -ism. As a social philosophy (opposed to communism and socialism) first attested 1851 in writings of J.S. Mill.
A majority can never replace the individual. ... Just as a hundred fools do not make one wise man, a heroic decision is not likely to come from a hundred cowards. [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf," 1933]
infralapsarian (adj.): 1731, from infra- + Latin lapsus "a fall" (see lapse (n.)) + ending from unitarian, etc. In reference to the Calvinist doctrine that god's election of some to everlasting life was consequent to his decree to allow the Fall of man, and was thus a remedial measure. Contrasted to supralapsarian, in reference to the belief that He always meant to consign most of mankind to eternal fire and that the decision to create some men to be damned was his first decree. There's also a moderate sublapsarian view. Here the decree to elect those who would believe and leave those who do not believe to damnation also comes after the decree to allow the fall, but the decree to provide salvation for man comes immediately after the decree to elect.
ish kabibble: 1913, "I should worry," of unknown origin, but perhaps derived from Yiddish nisht gefidlt. Said to have been popularized by comedienne Fanny Brice (1891-1951), but earliest references do not mention her.
"Chicken pox doesn't poison the wellsprings of one's existence like 'Ish kabibble,' and 'I should worry.!' Do you think it's any fun to bring up children to speak decent English, and then have their conversation strewed with phrases like that and with ain'ts? Do you think I like to hear Robert talking about his little friends as 'de guys' and 'de ginks?' [Mary Heaton Vorse, "Their Little Friends," in "Woman's Home Companion," February 1916]
je ne sais quoi (n.): "an inexpressible something," French, literally "I do not know what."
[T]hey are troubled with the je-ne-scay-quoy, that faign themselves sick out of niceness but know not where their own grief lies, or what ayls them. [Thomas Blount, "Glossographia," 1656]
literally (adv.): 1530s, "in a literal sense," from literal + -ly (2). Erroneously used in reference to metaphors, hyperbole, etc., even by writers like Dryden and Pope, to indicate "what follows must be taken in the strongest admissible sense" (1680s), which is opposite to the word's real meaning and a long step down the path to the modern misuse of it.
We have come to such a pass with this emphasizer that where the truth would require us to insert with a strong expression 'not literally, of course, but in a manner of speaking', we do not hesitate to insert the very word we ought to be at pains to repudiate; ... such false coin makes honest traffic in words impossible. [Fowler, 1924]
luminescence (n.): 1884, from Latin lumen (genitive luminis) "light" (see luminous) + -escence.
Fluorescence and Phosphorescence -- Prof. E. Wiedmann has made a new study of these phenomena. He proposes the general name luminescence for evolutions of light which do not depend on the temperature of the substance concerned. ["Photographic News," April 20, 1888]
lung (n.): "human respiratory organ," c. 1300, from Old English lungen (plural), from Proto-Germanic *lungw- (cognates: Old Norse lunge, Old Frisian lungen, Middle Dutch longhe, Dutch long, Old High German lungun, German lunge "lung"), literally "the light organ," from PIE *legwh- "not heavy, having little weight; easy, agile, nimble" (cognates: Russian lëgkij, Polish lekki "light;" Russian lëgkoje "lung," Greek elaphros "light" in weight; see also lever).

The notion probably is from the fact that, when thrown into a pot of water, lungs of a slaughtered animal float, while the heart, liver, etc., do not. Compare also Portuguese leve "lung," from Latin levis "light;" Irish scaman "lungs," from scaman "light;" Welsh ysgyfaint "lungs," from ysgafn "light." See also lights, pulmonary. Lung cancer attested from 1882.
Macbeth: masc. proper name, Gaelic, literally "son of life." The first reference to bad luck associated with Shakespeare's "Macbeth," and to avoidance of naming it, is from 1896, alludes to an incident of 1885, and says the tradition goes back "so far as modern memory can recall." The original superstition seems to have pertained particularly to the witches' scenes, which were played up dramatically in 19c. productions, and especially to Matthew Locke's 17c. music to accompany the witches' song, which was regularly played through the 19th century.
It is strange how the effect of this music has exerted such a long surviving influence on members of the dramatic profession. It is still considered most unlucky to sing, hum, or whistle the witch airs in the theatre except in the ways of business. [Young-Stewart, "The Three Witches," in "The Shakespearean," Sept. 15, 1896]

If you number an actor or actress among your friends, and desire to retain his or her friendship, there are three things you positively must not do, especially if the actor is of the old school. Do not whistle in the theatre, do not look over his shoulder into the glass while he is making up, and do not hum the witch's song from "Macbeth." ... [O]lder actors would almost prefer to lose their salary than go on in "Macbeth" on account of this song. They believe that it casts spells upon the members of the company. ["Some Odd Superstitions of the Stage," "Theatre" magazine, July 1909]
nolo contendere: Latin, literally "I do not wish to contend." A plea that admits no guilt but subjects the defendant to judgment.
opera (n.): "a drama sung" [Klein], 1640s, from Italian opera, literally "a work, labor, composition," from Latin opera "work, effort" (Latin plural regarded as feminine singular), secondary (abstract) noun from operari "to work," from opus (genitive operis) "a work" (see opus). Defined in "Elson's Music Dictionary" as, "a form of musical composition evolved shortly before 1600, by some enthusiastic Florentine amateurs who sought to bring back the Greek plays to the modern stage."
No good opera plot can be sensible. ... People do not sing when they are feeling sensible. [W.H. Auden, 1961]
As a branch of dramatic art, it is attested from 1759. First record of opera glass "small binoculars for use at the theater" is from 1738. Soap opera is first recorded 1939, as a disparaging reference to daytime radio dramas sponsored by soap manufacturers.
pogo (n.): 1921, originally a registered trademark (Germany, 1919), of unknown origin, perhaps formed from elements of the names of the designers.
Hopping Stilts Are the New French Playthings. ... For France and especially Paris has taken to the "pogo" stick, a stick equipped with two rests for the feet. Inside of the stick is a strong spring so that the "pogoer" may take a series of jumps without straining his powers. The doctors claim that the jarring produced by the successive jumps do not serve to injure the spine, as one might at first suppose. This jumping habit is spreading through France and England and the eastern part of the United States. ["Illustrated World," Sept., 1921]
The fad periodically returned in U.S., but with fading intensity. As a leaping style of punk dance, attested from 1977. The newspaper comic strip by Walt Kelly debuted in 1948 and ran daily through 1975.
prig (n.): "precisian in speech or manners," 1753, originally in reference to theological scruples (1704), of unknown origin; earlier appearances of the same word meaning "dandy, fop" (1670s), "thief" (c. 1600; in form prigger recorded from 1560s) could be related, as could thieves' cant prig "a tinker" (1560s).
A p[rig] is wise beyond his years in all the things that do not matter. A p. cracks nuts with a steam hammer: that is, calls in the first principles of morality to decide whether he may, or must, do something of as little importance as drinking a glass of beer. On the whole, one may, perhaps, say that all his different characteristics come from the combination, in varying proportions, of three things--the desire to do his duty, the belief that he knows better than other people, & blindness to the difference in value between different things. ["anonymous essay," quoted in Fowler, 1926]
Related: Priggery.
pulmonary (adj.): 1704, from French pulmonaire and directly from Latin pulmonarius "of the lungs," from pulmo (genitive pulmonis) "lung," cognate with Greek pleumon "lung," Old Church Slavonic plusta, Lithuanian plauciai "lungs," all from PIE *pleu- "to flow, to float, to swim" (see pluvial).

The notion perhaps is from the fact that, when thrown into a pot of water, lungs of a slaughtered animal float, while the heart, liver, etc., do not (compare Middle English lights "the lungs," literally "the light (in weight) organs"). Also see pneumo-.
salesmanship (n.): 1853, from salesman + -ship.
The modern system of salesmanship has become so much like persecution reduced to a science, that it is quite a luxury to be allowed the use of your own discretion, without being dragooned, by a shopkeeper's deputy, into looking at what you do not care to see, or buying what you would not have. A man in his sane mind, with the usual organs of speech, has a right to be treated as if he knows what he wants, and is able to ask for it. ["The Literary World," Feb. 26, 1853]