quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- almanac



[almanac 词源字典] - almanac: [14] One of the first recorded uses of almanac in English is by Chaucer in his Treatise on the astrolabe 1391: ‘A table of the verray Moeuyng of the Mone from howre to howre, every day and in every signe, after thin Almenak’. At that time an almanac was specifically a table of the movements and positions of the sun, moon, and planets, from which astronomical calculations could be made; other refinements and additions, such as a calendar, came to be included over succeeding centuries.
The earliest authenticated reference to an almanac comes in the (Latin) works of the English scientist Roger Bacon, in the mid 13th century. But the ultimate source of the word is obscure. Its first syllable, al-, and its general relevance to medieval science and technology, strongly suggest an Arabic origin, but no convincing candidate has been found.
[almanac etymology, almanac origin, 英语词源] - everyday (adj.)




- 1630s, "worn on ordinary days," as opposed to Sundays or high days, from noun meaning "a week day" (late 14c.), from every (adj.) + day (n.). Extended sense of "to be met with every day, common" is from 1763.
- golf (n.)




- mid-15c., Scottish gouf, usually taken as an alteration of Middle Dutch colf, colve "stick, club, bat," from Proto-Germanic *kulth- (cognates: Old Norse kolfr "clapper of a bell," German Kolben "mace, club, butt-end of a gun"). The game is from 14c., the word is first mentioned (along with fut-bol) in a 1457 Scottish statute on forbidden games (a later ordinance decrees, "That in na place of the realme thair be vsit fut-ballis, golf, or vther sic unprofitabill sportis" [Acts James IV, 1491, c.53]). Despite what you read on the Internet, "golf" is not an acronym. Golf ball attested from 1540s; the motorized golf-cart from 1951. Golf widow is from 1890.
Oh! who a golfer's bride would be,
Fast mated with a laddie
Who every day goes out to tee
And with him takes the caddie.
["The Golf Widow's Lament," in "Golf," Oct. 31, 1890]
- Prometheus




- demigod (son of the Titan Iapetus) who made man from clay and stole fire from heaven and taught mankind its use, for which he was punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock in the Caucasus, where a vulture came every day and preyed on his liver. The name is Greek, and anciently was interpreted as literally "forethinker, foreseer," from promethes "thinking before," from pro- "before" (see pro-) + *methos, related to mathein "to learn," from enlargement of PIE root *men- "to think" (see mind (n.)). However Watkins suggests the second element is possibly from a base meaning "to steal," also found in Sanskrit mathnati "he steals."