英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

almond: almond: [13] The l in almond is a comparatively recent addition; its immediate source, Latin amandula, did not have one (and nor, correspondingly, do French amande, Portuguese amendoa, Italian mandola, or German mandel). But the relative frequency of the prefix al- in Latin-derived words seems to have prompted its grafting on to amandula in its passage from Latin to Old French, giving a hypothetical *almandle and eventually al(e)mande.

French in due course dropped the l, but English acquired the word when it was still there. Going further back in time, the source of amandula was Latin amygdula, of which it was an alteration, and amygdula in turn was borrowed from the Greek word for ‘almond’, amygdálē. The Latin and Greek forms have been reborrowed into English at a much later date in various scientific terms: amygdala, for instance, an almond-shaped mass of nerve tissue in the brain; amygdalin, a glucoside found in bitter almonds; and amygdaloid, a rock with almondshaped cavities.
among: among: [OE] Gemong was an Old English word for ‘crowd’ – ge- was a collective prefix, signifying ‘together’, and -mong is related to mingle – and so the phrase on gemonge meant ‘in a crowd’, hence ‘in the midst, surrounded’. By the 12th century, the ge- element had dropped out, giving onmong and eventually among. A parallel bimong existed in the 13th century.
=> mingle
bamboo: bamboo: [16] Bamboo appears to come from a Malay word mambu. This was brought back to Europe by the Portuguese explorers, and enjoyed a brief currency in English from the 17th to the 18th century. However, for reasons no one can explain, the initial m of this word became changed to b, and it acquired an s at the end, producing a form found in Latin texts of the time as bambusa. This appears to have passed into English via Dutch bamboes, so the earliest English version of the word was bambos. As so often happens in such cases, the final s was misinterpreted as a plural ending, so it dropped off to give the new ‘singular’ bamboo.
benzene: benzene: [19] The original name given to this hydrocarbon, by the German chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich in 1833, was benzine. He based it on the term benzoic acid, a derivative of benzoin, the name of a resinous substance exuded by trees of the genus Styrax. This came ultimately from Arabic lubān-jāwī, literally ‘frankincense of Java’ (the trees grow in Southeast Asia).

When the expression was borrowed into the Romance languages, the initial lu- was apprehended as the definite article, and dropped (ironically, since in so many Arabic words which do contain the article al, it has been retained as part and parcel of the word – see ALGEBRA). This produced a variety of forms, including French benjoin, Portuguese beijoim, and Italian benzoi.

English probably acquired the word mainly from French (a supposition supported by the folketymological alteration benjamin which was in common use in English from the end of the 16th century), but took the z from the Italian form. Meanwhile, back with benzine, in the following year, 1834, the German chemist Justus von Liebig proposed the alternative name benzol; and finally, in the 1870s, the chemist A W Hofmann regularized the form to currently accepted chemical nomenclature as benzene.
=> benzol
canon: canon: There are today two distinct words canon in English, although ultimately they are related. The older, ‘(ecclesiastical) rule’ [OE], comes via Latin canōn from Greek kanón ‘rule’, which some have speculated may be related to Greek kánnā ‘reed’, source of English cane (the semantic link is said to be ‘reed’ – ‘rod’ – ‘measuring rod’ – ‘rule’).

The derived adjective, kanonikós, passed into ecclesiastical Latin as canonicus, which was used as a noun, ‘clergyman’; in Old French this became canonie or chanonie, and as it crossed into English its last syllable dropped off (owing to the influence of canon ‘rule’). The underlying sense of canon ‘clergyman’ [13] is thus ‘one living according to the rules of religious life’.
caper: caper: Caper ‘jump about’ [16] and the edible caper [15] are two different words. The former is a shortening of capriole ‘leap’, now obsolete except as a technical term in horsemanship, which comes via early French capriole from Italian capriola, a derivative of the verb capriolare ‘leap’, which in turn was formed from capriolo ‘roebuck’; its ultimate source was Latin capreolus, a diminutive form of caper ‘goat’ (whence the English astrological term Capricorn, literally ‘goat’s horn’). (The French by-form cabrioler was the source of English cab.) Caper ‘edible bud’ came via French câpres and Latin capparis from Greek kápparis; the earliest English form was capres, but this came to be misinterpreted as a plural, and the -s was dropped from the singular in the 16th century.
=> cab, capricorn, capriole
chemical: chemical: [16] Essentially chemical, and the related chemistry and chemist, come from alchemy with the initial al- dropped. Alchemy itself is of Arabic origin; al represents the Arabic definite article ‘the’, while the second element was borrowed from Greek khēmíā ‘alchemy’. Loss of al- seems to have taken place originally in French, so the immediate source of the English words was French chimiste and chimique (whence the now obsolete English chemic, on which chemical was based).

At first this whole group of words continued to be used in the same sense as its progenitor alchemy; it is not really until the 17th century that we find it being consistently applied to what we would now recognize as the scientific discipline of chemistry.
=> alchemy
chintz: chintz: [17] Chintz is originally an Indian word. English borrowed it from Hindi chīnt, and at first used it unaltered: Samuel Pepys, for instance, writing in his diary for 5 September 1663, notes ‘Bought my wife a chint, that is, a painted Indian calico, for to line her new study’. However, since in commercial use the plural form, chints, was so much commoner than the singular, it eventually came to be regarded as a singular itself, and the s-less form dropped out of the language.

In the 18th century, for some unexplained reason (perhaps on the analogy of such words as quartz) chints began to be spelled chintz. The Hindi word itself was originally an adjective, which came from Sanskrit chitra ‘many-coloured, bright’ (ultimate source of English chit ‘small piece of paper containing some sort of official notification’ [18]).
=> chit
cliché: cliché: [19] Originally, French clicher meant literally ‘stereotype’ – that is, ‘print from a plate made by making a type-metal cast from a mould of a printing surface’. The word was supposedly imitative of the sound made when the mould was dropped into the molten type metal. Hence a word or phrase that was cliché – had literally been repeated time and time again in identical form from a single printing plate – had become hackneyed.
damn: damn: [13] Damn comes via Old French damner from Latin damnāre, a derivative of the noun damnum. This originally meant ‘loss, harm’ (it is the source of English damage), but the verb damnāre soon spread its application to ‘pronounce judgment upon’, in both the legal and the theological sense. These meanings (reflected also in the derived condemn) followed the verb through Old French into English, which dropped the strict legal sense around the 16th century but has persisted with the theological one and its more profane offshoots.
=> condemn, damage, indemnity
dawn: dawn: [15] Dawn was originally formed from day. The Old English word dæg ‘day’ formed the basis of dagung, literally ‘daying’, a word coined to designate the emergence of day from night. In Middle English this became daiing or dawyng, which in the 13th to 14th centuries evolved to dai(e)ning or dawenyng, on the model of some such Scandinavian form as Old Swedish daghning. Then in the 15th century the -ing ending was dropped to produce dawn.
=> day
expect: expect: [16] Someone who expects something literally ‘looks out’ for it. The word comes from Latin expectāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and spectāre ‘look’ (source of English spectacle, spectre, spectrum, and speculate). Already in Latin the literal ‘look out’ had shifted metaphorically to ‘look forward to, anticipate’ and ‘await’, meanings adopted wholesale by English (‘await’ has since been dropped).
=> espionage, spectacle, speculate, spy
explicit: explicit: [17] Something that is explicit has literally been ‘unfolded’. Like the earlier borrowing explicate [16], the word comes from the past participle of Latin explicāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘un-’ and plicāre ‘fold’ (source of English ply and related to English fold). At first, in the 16th and 17th centuries, English retained the literal sense of the original, but gradually it dropped out in favour of the metaphorical ‘make clear, distinct, and open’ (already present in Latin).
=> exploit, fold, ply
face: face: [13] The notion that a person’s face ‘is’ their appearance, what they look like to the rest of the world, lies behind the word face. It probably comes from a prehistoric base *fac-, signifying ‘appear’. This gave rise to Latin faciēs, which originally meant ‘appearance, aspect, form’, and only secondarily, by figurative extension, ‘face’. In due course it passed via Vulgar Latin *facia into Old French as face, from which English acquired it (French, incidentally, dropped the sense ‘face’ in the 17th century, although the word face is retained for ‘front, aspect’, etc).

Related forms in English include facade [17], facet [17] (originally a diminutive), superficial and surface.
=> facade, facet, superficial, surface
hamburger: hamburger: [19] As its inherent beefiness amply demonstrates, the hamburger has nothing to do with ham. It originated in the German city and port of Hamburg. The fashioning of conveniently sized patties was a common way of dealing with minced beef in northern Europe and the Baltic in the 19th century, and it appears that German sailors or emigrants took the delicacy across the Atlantic with them to America.

There it was called a Hamburg steak or, using the German adjectival form, a Hamburger steak. That term is first recorded in the late 1880s, and by the first decade of the 20th century the steak had been dropped. By the 1930s the hamburger had become an American fast-food staple, and products similar in concept but with different ingredients inspired variations on its name: beefburger, cheeseburger, steakburger, and so on; and by the end of the decade plain burger was well established in the language.
inform: inform: [14] When English first acquired inform (via Old French enfourmer) it was used simply for ‘give form or shape to’. However, its Latin original, informāre (a compound verb based on forma ‘form’), had in classical times moved on from the primary notion of ‘shaping’ via ‘forming an idea of something’ and ‘describing it’ to ‘telling or instructing people about something’. English took this sense over too, and has persevered with it, but ‘give shape to’ was dropped in the 17th century.
=> form
Lent: Lent: [OE] The etymological meaning of Lent is ‘long days’. It comes from *langgitīnaz, a prehistoric West Germanic compound formed from *lanngaz ‘long’ and an element *tīnadenoting ‘day’. This signified originally ‘spring’, an allusion to the lengthening days at that time of year. It passed into Old English as lencten, which became Middle English lenten, but in the 13th century the -en was dropped from the noun, leaving Lenten to function as an adjective. By this time too the secular sense ‘spring’ was fast dying out, having been usurped by the application of Lent to the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
=> long
macabre: macabre: [15] Macabre is now used generally for ‘ghastly’, but that is a late 19th-century development. It originated in the very specific phrase dance macabre, which denoted a dance in which a figure representing death enticed people to dance with him until they dropped down dead. This was borrowed from French danse macabre, which was probably an alteration of an earlier danse Macabé. This in turn was a translation of medieval Latin chorea Machabaeorum ‘dance of the Maccabees’, which is thought originally to have referred to a stylized representation of the slaughter of the Maccabees (a Jewish dynasty of biblical times) in a medieval miracle play.
melon: melon: [14] Greek mēlon actually meant ‘apple’. But combination with pépōn ‘ripe’ (a relative of English peptic [17]) produced mēlopépōn, which was used for ‘melon’. This passed into Latin as mēlopepō, but the -pepō part was subsequently dropped, giving mēlō – source, via Old French, of English melon.
=> marmalade
mind: mind: [12] Mind is a member of a large and diverse family of English words (including mandarin, mathematics, memory, and reminisce) that go back ultimately to the Indo-European base *men- ‘think’. Amongst its other descendants were Latin mēns ‘mind’, source of English mental [15], and prehistoric Germanic *gamunthiz (formed with the collective prefix *ga-).

This passed into Old English as gemynd, but its prefix was dropped in the early Middle English period, giving modern English mind. Historically, ‘memory’ has been as important an element in the word’s meaning as ‘mental faculty’, but it now survives mainly in the derived verb remind.
=> mandarin, mathematics, memory, mental, reminisce
mine: mine: English has two quite distinct words mine. The first person possessive pronoun [OE] goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *mīnaz (source also of German mein, Dutch mijn, and Swedish and Danish min), which was derived from the same Indo-European source as produced English me. Originally it was an adjective, but in the 13th century the -n was dropped before consonants, and eventually the resulting my took over the adjective slot altogether, leaving mine as a pronoun only. Mine ‘excavation’ [14] is of uncertain origin.

It comes via Old French from an assumed Vulgar Latin *mina, which may go back ultimately to a Celtic *meini- ‘ore’ (Gaelic has mein ‘ore, mine’ and Welsh mwyn ‘ore’). The use of the word for an ‘explosive device’, which dates from the 17th century, arose from the practice of digging tunnels or ‘mines’ beneath enemy positions and then blowing them up.
=> me, my
mosque: mosque: [17] Mosque means etymologically a place where you ‘bow down’ in prayer and is, not surprisingly, of Arabic origin. It comes from Arabic masjid ‘place of worship’, a derivative of the verb sajada ‘bow down’. English acquired the word via Italian moschea and French mosquée as mosquee, but soon dropped the final -e. (The Arabic form masjid or musjid has been intermittently used in English in the 19th and 20th centuries.)
perfume: perfume: [16] The -fume of perfume is the same word as English fumes, but whereas fumes has gone downhill semantically, perfume has remained in the realms of pleasant odours. It comes from French parfum, a derivative of the verb parfumer. This was borrowed from early Italian parfumare, a compound formed from the prefix par- ‘through’ and fumare ‘smoke’, which denoted a ‘pervading by smoke’. When it first arrived in English, the semantic element ‘burning’ was still present, and perfume denoted the ‘fumes produced by burning a substance, such as incense’, but this gradually dropped out in favour of the more general ‘pleasant smell’.
=> fume
vitamin: vitamin: [20] Vitamins were originally vitamines: the Polish-born biochemist Casimir Funk who introduced them to the world in 1920 believed that they were amino acids and so formed the name from Latin vita ‘life’ and amine. It was soon discovered that Funk’s belief was mistaken, and alternative names were suggested, but in 1920 it was successfully proposed (by J.C. Drummond) that the -e be dropped to avoid confusion, and the form vitamin was born.
=> amine, vital
able (adj.): early 14c., from Old French (h)able (14c.), from Latin habilem, habilis "easily handled, apt," verbal adjective from habere "to hold" (see habit). "Easy to be held," hence "fit for a purpose." The silent h- was dropped in English and resisted academic attempts to restore it 16c.-17c. (see H), but some derivatives (such as habiliment, habilitate) acquired it via French.
Able-whackets - A popular sea-game with cards, in which the loser is beaten over the palms of the hands with a handkerchief tightly twisted like a rope. Very popular with horny-fisted sailors. [Smyth, "Sailor's Word-Book," 1867]
among (prep.): early 12c., from Old English onmang, from phrase on gemang "in a crowd," from gemengan "to mingle" (see mingle). Collective prefix ge- dropped 12c. leaving onmong, amang, among. Compare Old Saxon angimang "among, amid;" Old Frisian mong "among."
antarctic (adj.): late 14c., antartyk "opposite to the north pole" (adj.), also (with capital A) "region around the South pole" (n.), from Old French antartique, from Medieval Latin antarcticus, from Greek antarktikos "opposite the north," from anti- "opposite" (see anti-) + arktikos "arctic" (see arctic). The first -c- sound ceased to be pronounced in Medieval Latin and was dropped in Old French. Modern English spelling, which restores it, dates from 17c.
askance (adv.): 1520s, "sideways, asquint," of obscure origin. OED has separate listings for askance and obsolete Middle English askance(s) and no indication of a connection, but Barnhart and others derive the newer word from the older one. The Middle English word, recorded early 14c. as ase quances and found later in Chaucer, meant "in such a way that; even as; as if;" and as an adverb "insincerely, deceptively." It has been analyzed as a compound of as and Old French quanses (pronounced "kanses") "how if," from Latin quam "how" + si "if."
The E[nglish] as is, accordingly, redundant, and merely added by way of partial explanation. The M.E. askances means "as if" in other passages, but here means, "as if it were," i.e. "possibly," "perhaps"; as said above. Sometimes the final s is dropped .... [Walter W. Skeat, glossary to Chaucer's "Man of Law's Tale," 1894]
Also see discussion in Leo Spitzer, "Anglo-French Etymologies," Philological Quarterly 24.23 (1945), and see OED entry for askance (adv.) for discussion of the mysterious ask- word cluster in English. Other guesses about the origin of askance include Old French a escone, from past participle of a word for "hidden;" Italian a scancio "obliquely, slantingly;" or that it is a cognate of askew.
authority (n.): early 13c., autorite "book or quotation that settles an argument," from Old French auctorité "authority, prestige, right, permission, dignity, gravity; the Scriptures" (12c.; Modern French autorité), from Latin auctoritatem (nominative auctoritas) "invention, advice, opinion, influence, command," from auctor "master, leader, author" (see author (n.)).

Usually spelled with a -c- in English till 16c., when it was dropped in imitation of the French. Meaning "power to enforce obedience" is from late 14c.; meaning "people in authority" is from 1610s. Authorities "those in charge, those with police powers" is recorded from mid-19c.
blackball (v.): also black-ball, "to exclude from a club by adverse votes," 1770, from black (adj.) + ball (n.1). Black balls of wood or ivory dropped into an urn during secret ballots.
bomb (n.): 1580s, from French bombe, from Italian bomba, probably from Latin bombus "a deep, hollow noise; a buzzing or booming sound," from Greek bombos "deep and hollow sound," echoic. Originally of mortar shells, etc.; modern sense of "explosive device placed by hand or dropped from airplane" is 1909. Meaning "old car" is from 1953. Meaning "success" is from 1954 (late 1990s slang the bomb "the best" is probably a fresh formation); opposite sense of "a failure" is from 1963. The bomb "atomic bomb" is from 1945.
caper (n.1): type of prickly Mediterranean bush, also in reference to the plant's edible buds, late 14c., from Latin capparis (source of Italian cappero, French câpre, German Kaper), from Greek kapparis "the caper plant or its fruit," which is of uncertain origin. Arabic kabbar, Persian kabar are from Greek. Perhaps reborrowed into English 16c. The final -s was mistaken for a plural inflection in English and dropped.
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.
climb (v.): Old English climban "raise oneself using hands and feet; rise gradually, ascend; make an ascent of" (past tense clamb, past participle clumben, clumbe), from West Germanic *klimban "go up by clinging" (cognates: Dutch klimmen "to climb," Old High German klimban, German klimmen). A strong verb in Old English, weak by 16c. Most other Germanic languages long ago dropped the -b. Meaning "to mount as if by climbing" is from mid-14c. Figurative sense of "rise slowly by effort" is from mid-13c. Related: Climbed; climbing.
coney (n.): c. 1200, from Anglo-French conis, plural of conil "long-eared rabbit" (Lepus cunicula) from Latin cuniculus (source of Spanish conejo, Portuguese coelho, Italian coniglio), the small, Spanish variant of the Italian hare (Latin lepus), the word perhaps from Iberian Celtic (classical writers say it is Spanish).

Rabbit arose 14c. to mean the young of the species, but gradually pushed out the older word 19c., after British slang picked up coney as a punning synonym for cunny "cunt" (compare connyfogle "to deceive in order to win a woman's sexual favors"). The word was in the King James Bible [Prov. xxx:26, etc.], however, so it couldn't be entirely dropped, and the solution was to change the pronunciation of the original short vowel (rhyming with honey, money) to rhyme with boney. In the Old Testament, the word translates Hebrew shaphan "rock-badger." Rabbits not being native to northern Europe, there was no Germanic or Celtic word for them.
corn (n.1): "grain," Old English corn, from Proto-Germanic *kurnam "small seed" (cognates: Old Frisian and Old Saxon korn "grain," Middle Dutch coren, German Korn, Old Norse korn, Gothic kaurn), from PIE root *gre-no- "grain" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic zruno "grain," Latin granum "seed," Lithuanian žirnis "pea"). The sense of the Old English word was "grain with the seed still in" (as in barleycorn) rather than a particular plant.

Locally understood to denote the leading crop of a district. Restricted to the indigenous "maize" in America (c. 1600, originally Indian corn, but the adjective was dropped), usually wheat in England, oats in Scotland and Ireland, while Korn means "rye" in parts of Germany. Maize was introduced to China by 1550, it thrived where rice did not grow well and was a significant factor in the 18th century population boom there. Cornflakes first recorded 1907. Corned beef so called for the "corns" or grains of salt with which it is preserved; from verb corn "to salt" (1560s).
cougar (n.): 1774, from French couguar, Buffon's adaption (influenced by jaguar) of a word the Portuguese picked up in Brazil as çuçuarana, perhaps from Tupi susuarana, from suasu "deer" + rana "false." Another proposed source is Guarani guaçu ara. Evidently the cedillas dropped off the word before Buffon got it. Slang sense of "older woman (35-plus) who seeks younger males as sex partners" is attested by 2002; said in some sources to have originated in Canada, probably from some reference to predatory feline nature.
drop (v.): Old English dropian "to fall in drops" (see drop (n.)). Meaning "to fall vertically" is late 14c. Transitive sense "allow to fall" is mid-14c. Related: Dropped; dropping. Exclamation drop dead is from 1934; as an adjective meaning "stunning, excellent" it is first recorded 1970.
Eblis: prince of the fallen angels in Arabic mythology and religion, from Arabic Iblis. Klein thinks this may be Greek diablos, passed through Syriac where the first syllable was mistaken for the Syriac genitive particle di and dropped. "Before his fall he was called Azazel or Hharis" [Century Dictionary].
handkerchief (n.): 1520s, from hand + kerchief, originally "cloth for covering the head," but since Middle English used generally as "piece of cloth used about the person." A curious confluence of words for "hand" and "head." By-form handkercher was in use 16c.-19c. A dropped handkerchief as a token of flirtation or courtship is attested by mid-18c.
lawn (n.1): "turf, stretch of grass," 1540s, laune "glade, open space between woods," from Middle English launde (c. 1300), from Old French lande "heath, moor, barren land; clearing" (12c.), from Gaulish (compare Breton lann "heath"), or from its Germanic cognate, source of English land (n.). The -d perhaps mistaken for an affix and dropped. Sense of "grassy ground kept mowed" first recorded 1733.
lest (conj.): c. 1200, contracted from Middle English phrase les te "less that," from Old English phrase þy læs þe "whereby less that," from þy, instrumental case of demonstrative article þæt "that" + læs (see less) + þe "the." The þy was dropped and the remaining two words contracted into leste.
moron (n.): 1910, medical Latin, from Greek (Attic) moron, neuter of moros "foolish, dull, sluggish, stupid," probably cognate with Sanskrit murah "idiotic." Latin morus "foolish" is a loan-word from Greek. Adopted by the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-minded with a technical definition "adult with a mental age between 8 and 12;" used as an insult since 1922 and subsequently dropped from technical use. Linnæus had introduced morisis "idiocy."
The feeble-minded may be divided into: (1) Those who are totally arrested before the age of three so that they show the attainment of a two-year-old child or less; these are the idiots. (2) Those so retarded that they become permanently arrested between the ages of three and seven; these are imbeciles. (3) Those so retarded that they become arrested between the ages of seven and twelve; these were formerly called feeble-minded, the same term that is applied to the whole group. We are now proposing to call them morons, this word being the Greek for "fool." The English word "fool" as formerly used describes exactly this grade of child--one who is deficient in judgment or sense. [Henry H. Goddard, in Journal of Proceedings and Addresses" of the National Education Association of the United States, July 1910]
nepenthe (n.): 1570s, nepenthes, from Greek nepenthes, from ne- "no, not" (see un-) + penthos "pain, grief," from PIE *kwent(h)- "to suffer" (see pathos). A drug of Egypt mentioned in the "Odyssey" as capable of banishing grief or trouble from the mind. The -s is a proper part of the word, but likely was mistaken in English as a plural affix and dropped.
phthisic (adj.): late 14c., tysyk "of or pertaining to a wasting disease," from Old French tisike, phtisique "consumptive" (11c.), from Vulgar Latin *phthisicus, from Greek phthisikos "consumptive," from phthisis "wasting, consumption" (see phthisis). Earlier in English as a noun meaning "wasting disease of the lungs" (mid-14c.). Related: Phthisical.
The old pronunciation dropped the ph-, but this will probably recover its sound now that everyone can read.
plaudit (n.): 1620s, short for plaudite "an actor's request for applause" (1560s), from Latin plaudite! "applaud!" second person plural imperative of plaudere "to clap, strike, beat; applaud, approve," of unknown origin (also in applaud, explode). This was the customary appeal for applause that Roman actors made at the end of a play. In English, the -e went silent then was dropped.
punt (v.): "to kick a ball dropped from the hands before it hits the ground," 1845, first in a Rugby list of football rules, perhaps from dialectal punt "to push, strike," alteration of Midlands dialect bunt "to push, butt with the head," of unknown origin, perhaps echoic. Student slang meaning "give up, drop a course so as not to fail," 1970s, is because a U.S. football team punts when it cannot advance the ball. Related: Punted; punting.
R: In a circle, meaning "registered (trademark)," first incorporated in U.S. statues 1946. R&R "rest and relaxation," first recorded 1953, American English; R&B "rhythm and blues" (type of popular music) first attested 1949, American English.
If all our r's that are written are pronounced, the sound is more common than any other in English utterance (over seven per cent.); the instances of occurrence before a vowel, and so of universal pronunciation, are only half as frequent. There are localities where the normal vibration of the tip of the tongue is replaced by one of the uvula, making a guttural trill, which is still more entitled to the name of "dog's letter" than is the ordinary r; such are considerable parts of France and Germany; the sound appears to occur only sporadically in English pronunciation. [Century Dictionary]

The moment we encounter the added r's of purp or dorg in our reading we know that we have to do with humor, and so with school-marm. The added consonants are supposed to be spoken, if the words are uttered, but, as a matter of fact, they are less often uttered than seen. The words are, indeed, largely visual forms; the humor is chiefly for the eye. [Louise Pound, "The Humorous 'R,'" "American Mercury," October 1924]
She goes on to note that in British humorous writing, -ar "popularly indicates the sound of the vowel in father" and formations like larf (for laugh) "are to be read with the broad vowel but no uttered r." She also quotes Henry James on the characteristic prominence of the medial -r- sound (which tends to be dropped in England and New England) in the speech of the U.S. Midwest, "under some strange impulse received toward consonantal recovery of balance, making it present even in words from which it is absent, bringing it in everywhere as with the small vulgar effect of a sort of morose grinding of the back teeth."
rabbit (n.): late 14c., "young of the coney," from Walloon robète or a similar French dialect word, diminutive of Flemish or Middle Dutch robbe "rabbit," of unknown origin. "A Germanic noun with a French suffix" [Liberman]. The adult was a coney (q.v.) until 18c.
Zoologically speaking, there are no native rabbits in the United States; they are all hares. But the early colonists, for some unknown reason, dropped the word hare out of their vocabulary, and it is rarely heard in American speech to this day. When it appears it is almost always applied to the so-called Belgian hare, which, curiously enough, is not a hare at all, but a true rabbit. [Mencken, "The American Language"]
Rabbit punch "chop on the back of the neck" so called from resemblance to a gamekeeper's method of dispatching an injured rabbit. Pulling rabbits from a hat as a conjurer's trick recorded by 1843. Rabbit's foot "good luck charm" first attested 1879, in U.S. Southern black culture. Earlier references are to its use as a tool to apply cosmetic powders.
[N]ear one of them was the dressing-room of the principal danseuse of the establishment, who was at the time of the rising of the curtain consulting a mirror in regard to the effect produced by the application of a rouge-laden rabbit's foot to her cheeks, and whose toilet we must remark, passim, was not entirely completed. ["New York Musical Review and Gazette," Nov. 29, 1856]
Rabbit ears "dipole television antenna" is from 1950. Grose's 1785 "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" has "RABBIT CATCHER. A midwife."
Roosevelt: the family in America originally bore the name Van Roosevelt, "of the field of roses," descriptive of their estates in Holland. Claes Martenszen Van Rosenvelt, born August 1649, emigrated to New Amsterdam. His son (1653) and all his descendants dropped the "Van." Related: Rooseveltian.