英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

ant [ant 词源字典]: ant: [OE] The word ant appears to carry the etymological sense ‘creature that cuts off or bites off’. Its Old English form, æmette, was derived from a hypothetical Germanic compound *aimaitjōn, formed from the prefix *ai- ‘off, away’ and the root *mait- ‘cut’ (modern German has the verb meissen ‘chisel, carve’): thus, ‘the biter’.

The Old English word later developed along two distinct strands: in one, it became emmet, which survived into the 20th century as a dialectal form; while in the other it progressed through amete and ampte to modern English ant. If the notion of ‘biting’ in the naming of the ant is restricted to the Germanic languages (German has ameise), the observation that it and its nest smell of urine has been brought into play far more widely.

The Indo-European root *meigh-, from which ultimately we get micturate ‘urinate’ [18], was also the source of several words for ‘ant’, including Greek múrmēx (origin of English myrmecology ‘study of ants’, and also perhaps of myrmidon [14] ‘faithful follower’, from the Myrmidons, a legendary Greek people who loyally followed their king Achilles in the Trojan war, and who were said originally to have been created from ants), Latin formīca (hence English formic acid [18], produced by ants, and formaldehyde [19]), and Danish myre.

It also produced Middle English mire ‘ant’, the underlying meaning of which was subsequently reinforced by the addition of piss to give pismire, which again survived dialectally into the 20th century.
[ant etymology, ant origin, 英语词源]
dame: dame: [13] Latin domina was the feminine form of dominus ‘lord’ (see DOMINION). English acquired it via Old French dame, but it has also spread through the other Romance languages, including Spanish dueña (source of English duenna [17]) and Italian donna (whence English prima donna, literally ‘first lady’ [18]). The Vulgar Latin diminutive form of domina was *dominicella, literally ‘little lady’.

This passed into Old French as donsele, was modified by association with dame to damisele, and acquired in the 13th century by English, in which it subsequently became damsel (the archaic variant damosel came from the 16th-century French form damoiselle).
=> damsel, danger, dominate, dominion, duenna, prima donna
turncoat: turncoat: [16] A turncoat is someone who abandons or betrays a group or cause and joins its opponents. The story goes – probably apocryphally – that there was once a Duke of Saxony whose territories abutted those of France. Clearly anxious always to make the right impression, he had a coat made which was blue on one side and white on the other. When he wished to be seen to be supporting the French interest he wore it with the white side outwards, and when he did not, he wore it with the blue side outwards.

Documentation of this tale is lacking, and probably the expression had a much less specific origin (the phrase turn one’s coat for ‘betray one’s loyalties’ is contemporaneous).
damsel (n.): late 12c., from Old French dameisele "woman of noble birth" (Modern French demoiselle "young lady"), modified (by association with dame) from earlier donsele, from Gallo-Roman *domnicella, diminutive of Latin domina "lady" (see dame). Archaic until revived by romantic poets, along with 16c.-17c. variant form damozel.
fascism (n.): 1922, originally used in English in 1920 in its Italian form fascismo (see fascist). Applied to similar groups in Germany from 1923; applied to everyone since the Internet.
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. [Robert O. Paxton, "The Anatomy of Fascism," 2004]
heart-strings (n.): also heartstrings, late 15c., in old anatomy, "the tendons and nerves that brace the heart;" from heart (n.) + string (n.). Transferred and figurative sense "strongest affections, most intense feelings" is from 1590s.
mathematic (n.): late 14c. as singular noun, replaced by early 17c. by mathematics, from Latin mathematica (plural), from Greek mathematike tekhne "mathematical science," feminine singular of mathematikos (adj.) "relating to mathematics, scientific, astronomical; disposed to learn," from mathema (genitive mathematos) "science, knowledge, mathematical knowledge; a lesson," literally "that which is learnt;" related to manthanein "to learn," from PIE root *mendh- "to learn" (cognates: Greek menthere "to care," Lithuanian mandras "wide-awake," Old Church Slavonic madru "wise, sage," Gothic mundonsis "to look at," German munter "awake, lively"). As an adjective, 1540s, from French mathématique or directly from Latin mathematicus.
NASCAR: acronym for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, U.S. auto racing promotion group founded 1948 in Daytona Beach, Florida. NASCAR dad in U.S. political parlance, "small-town, often Southern white man who abandons traditional Democratic leanings to vote Republican at least once every four years" coined 2003 by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.
pardoner (n.): "man licensed to sell papal pardons or indulgences," mid-14c., agent noun from pardon (v.).
rat (n.): late Old English ræt "rat," of uncertain origin. Similar words are found in Celtic (Gaelic radan), Romanic (Italian ratto, Spanish rata, French rat) and Germanic (Old Saxon ratta; Dutch rat; German Ratte, dialectal Ratz; Swedish råtta, Danish rotte) languages, but connection is uncertain and origin unknown. In all this it is very much like cat.

Perhaps from Vulgar Latin *rattus, but Weekley thinks this is of Germanic origin, "the animal having come from the East with the race-migrations" and the word passing thence to the Romanic languages. American Heritage and Tucker connect Old English ræt to Latin rodere and thus PIE *red- "to scrape, scratch, gnaw," source of rodent (q.v.). Klein says there is no such connection and suggests a possible cognate in Greek rhine "file, rasp." Weekley connects them with a question mark and Barnhart writes, "the relationship to each other of the Germanic, Romance, and Celtic words for rat is uncertain." OED says "probable" the rat word spread from Germanic to Romanic, but takes no position on ultimate origin.
RATS. Of these there are the following kinds: a black rat and a grey rat, a py-rat and a cu-rat. ["Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," Grose, 1788]
Middle English common form was ratton, from augmented Old French form raton. Sense of "one who abandons his associates" (1620s) is from belief that rats leave a ship about to sink or a house about to fall and led to meaning "traitor, informant" (1902; verb 1910). Interjection rats is American English, 1886. To smell a rat is 1540s; "to be put on the watch by suspicion as the cat by the scent of a rat; to suspect danger" [Johnson]. _____-rat, "person who frequents _____" (in earliest reference dock-rat) is from 1864.
string (n.): Old English streng "line, cord, thread, string of a bow or harp," in plural "tackle, rigging; lineage, race," from Proto-Germanic *strangiz (cognates: Old Norse strengr, Danish streng, Middle Dutch strenge, Dutch streng, Old High German strang, German Strang "rope, cord"), from *strang- "taut, stiff," from PIE root *strenk- "tight, narrow." Gradually restricted by early Middle English to lines that are smaller than a rope. Sense of "a number of objects arranged in a line" first recorded late 15c.

Old English meaning "ligaments, tendons" is preserved in hamstring, heartstrings. Meaning "limitations, stipulations" (1888) is American English, probably from the common April Fool's joke of leaving a purse that appears to be full of money on the sidewalk, then tugging it away with an attached string when someone stoops to pick it up.

To pull strings "control the course of affairs" (1860) is from the notion of puppet theater. First string, second string, etc. in athletics (1863) is from archers' custom of carrying spare bowstrings in the event that one breaks. Strings "stringed instruments" is attested from mid-14c. String bean is from 1759; string bikini is from 1974.
dicotyledon: "A flowering plant with an embryo that bears two cotyledons (seed leaves). Dicotyledons constitute the larger of the two great divisions of flowering plants, and typically have broad stalked leaves with net-like veins (e.g. daisies, hawthorns, oaks)", Early 18th century: from modern Latin dicotyledones (plural), from di- 'two' + cotyledon (see cotyledon).
retinaculum: " Anatomy . A structure that holds (or appears to hold) something in place; specifically †(a) = proligerous disc ( obsolete ); (b) a ligamentous band retaining tendons in place, especially in the region of the wrist and ankle (frequently with distinguishing English or scientific Latin word or words)", Mid 17th cent.; earliest use found in Thomas Johnson (d. 1644), apothecary and soldier. From classical Latin retināculum rope that holds a thing fast, cable, tether, animal's rein, towing rope, in post-classical Latin also surgical clamp from retinēre + -culum.