英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

bee's knees (n.)[bee's knees 词源字典]: 1923, a survivor of a fad around this year for slang terms denoting "excellence" and based on animal anatomy. Also existed in the more ribald form bee's nuts. Other versions that lasted through the century are cat's whiskers (1923), cat's pajamas, cat's meow. More obscure examples are canary's tusks, cat's nuts and flea's eyebrows. The fad still had a heartbeat in Britain at the end of the century, as attested by the appearance of dog's bollocks in 1989. Bee's knee was used as far back as 1797 for "something insignificant."[bee's knees etymology, bee's knees origin, 英语词源]
Boyle's law (n.): named for Irish-born chemist and physicist Robert Boyle (1627-1691), who published it in 1662.
e'en: variant spelling of even, now archaic or poetic. E'enamost "even almost" is recorded from 1735 in Kentish speech.
e'er: variant spelling of ever, now archaic or poetic.
ne'er: c. 1200, contraction of never.
ne'er-do-well (n.): "one who is good for nothing," 1737, Scottish and northern English dialect, from contraction of phrase never do well. The adjective is first recorded 1773.
Wernicke's area: "A region of the brain concerned with the comprehension of language, located in the cortex of the dominant temporal lobe. Damage in this area causes Wernicke’s aphasia, characterized by superficially fluent, grammatical speech but an inability to use or understand more than the most basic nouns and verbs", Late 19th century: named after Karl Wernicke (1848–1905), German neuropsychiatrist.