英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

achieve: achieve: [14] Achieve is related to chief. It comes from Old French achever ‘bring to an end’, or literally ‘bring to a head’, which was based on the phrase a chief ‘to a head’ (chief derives ultimately from Latin caput ‘head’). The heraldic meaning of achievement, ‘coat of arms’, comes from the notion that the escutcheon was granted as a reward for a particular achievement. Over the centuries it has evolved an alternative form, hatchment [16].
=> chief, hatchment
amateur: amateur: [18] Etymologically, an amateur is simply a ‘lover’. That is what its ultimate Latin ancestor amator meant, and indeed in English it still denoted ‘someone who loves or is fond of something’ until well into the 19th century (‘am no amateur of these melons’, Mrs Atkinson, Tartar Steppes 1863). However, its immediate source, French amateur, had already evolved the subsidiary sense ‘one who does something solely for the enjoyment, not for payment’, and that is now its only English meaning.
arbour: arbour: [14] Despite its formal resemblance to, and semantic connections with, Latin arbor ‘tree’, arbour is not etymologically related to it. In fact, its nearest English relative is herb. When it first came into English it was erber, which meant ‘lawn’ or ‘herb/flower garden’. This was borrowed, via Anglo-Norman, from Old French erbier, a derivative of erbe ‘herb’.

This in turn goes back to Latin herba ‘grass, herb’ (in the 16th century a spelling with initial h was common in England). Gradually, it seems that the sense ‘grassy plot’ evolved to ‘separate, secluded nook in a garden’; at first, the characteristic feature of such shady retreats was their patch of grass, but their seclusion was achieved by surrounding trees or bushes, and eventually the criterion for an arbour shifted to ‘being shaded by trees’.

Training on a trellis soon followed, and the modern arbour as ‘bower’ was born. The shift from grass and herbaceous plants to trees no doubt prompted the alteration in spelling from erber to arbour, after Latin arbor; this happened in the 15th and 16th centuries.
=> herb
argue: argue: [14] English acquired argue and its various meanings via rather complex paths, but its ultimate origin is straightforward: the Latin verb arguere derived from a prehistoric Indo- European base *arg- ‘be white, bright, or clear’ (source also of Latin argentum ‘silver’, and thus of French argent ‘money’); it therefore meant primarily ‘make clear’, but this subsequently developed into ‘assert, prove’.

A frequentative form (that is, one denoting repeated action) evolved, argutāre; this signified ‘make repeated assertions or accusations’. This passed into medieval French as arguer ‘accuse, blame’, and also ‘bring forward reasons for an assertion’, and thence into English. The meaning ‘accuse’ died out in English in the late 17th century, leaving ‘reasoning, discussing’ as the main sense of argue.

Meanwhile, original Latin arguere had made its presence felt in establishing the sense ‘prove’ in English, now somewhat weakened to ‘imply, indicate’ (as in ‘Their lack of involvement argues indifference’). The sense ‘quarrel’ seems to have developed from ‘discuss’ in the 17th century.
blue: blue: [13] Colour terms are notoriously slippery things, and blue is a prime example. Its ultimate ancestor, Indo-European *bhlēwos, seems originally to have meant ‘yellow’ (it is the source of Latin flāvus ‘yellow’, from which English gets flavine ‘yellow dye’ [19]). But it later evolved via ‘white’ (Greek phalós ‘white’ is related) and ‘pale’ to ‘livid, the colour of bruised skin’ (Old Norse has blá ‘livid’).

English had the related blāw, but it did not survive, and the modern English word was borrowed from Old French bleu. This was descended from a Common Romance *blāvus, which in turn was acquired from prehistoric Germanic *blǣwaz (source also of German blau ‘blue’).
=> flavine
commit: commit: [14] Etymologically, commit simply means ‘put together’. It comes from Latin committere, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and the verb mittere ‘put, send’ (whence English missile and mission). It originally meant literally ‘join, connect’, but then branched out along the lines of ‘put for safety, entrust’ (the force of com- here being more intensive than collective) and ‘perpetrate’ (exactly how this sense evolved is not clear).

The whole range of meanings followed the Latin verb into English, although ‘put together’ was never more than an archaism, and died out in the 17th century. Of derivatives based on the Latin verb’s past participial stem commiss-, commission entered English in the 14th century and commissionaire (via French) in the 18th century. Medieval Latin commissārius produced English commissary [14] and, via French, Russian commissar, borrowed into English in the 20th century.
=> commissar, committee, missile, mission
crime: crime: [14] Crime is one of a wide range of English words (including certain, crisis, critic, decree, discern, discrete, discriminate, excrement, riddle ‘sieve’, secret, and secretary) which come ultimately from or are related to the Greek verb krínein ‘decide’. This was a relative of Latin cernere ‘decide’, from whose root evolved the noun crīmen ‘judgment, accusation, illegal act’. This passed via Old French crimne (later crime) into English, where traces of the original meaning ‘accusation’ survived until the 17th century.
=> certain, critic, decree, discriminate, excrement, secret
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
device: device: [13] A device is something which has been devised – which, etymologically speaking, amounts to ‘something which has been divided’. For ultimately devise and divide come from the same source. The noun device comes in the first instance from Old French devis ‘division, contrivance’ and latterly (in the 15th century) from Old French devise ‘plan’, both of which were derivatives of the verb deviser ‘divide, devise’ (source of English devise [13]).

This in turn came from Vulgar Latin *dīvisāre, a verb based on the past participial stem of Latin dīvidere, source of English divide. The semantic development by which ‘divide’ passed to ‘contrive’, presumably based on the notion that dividing something up and distributing it needs some planning, happened before the word reached English, and English device has never meant ‘division’.

The sense ‘simple machine’ essentially evolved in the 16th century.
=> devise, divide, individual, widow
draw: draw: [OE] The Old English ancestor of modern English draw was dragan, which came from a prehistoric Germanic verb *dragan (source also of English drag). This seems to have meant originally ‘carry’ (which is what its German and Dutch descendants tragen and dragen still mean). In English and the Scandinavian languages, however (Swedish draga, for instance), it has evolved to ‘pull’. ‘Sketch’, perhaps the word’s most common modern English sense, developed in Middle English from the notion of ‘drawing’ or ‘pulling’ a pencil, brush, etc across a surface. Dray ‘wagon’ [14] is related to, and perhaps originally came from, Old English dragan.
=> drag, draught, dray
epicure: epicure: [16] The Greek philosopher Epicurus (Greek Epíkouros) (341–270 BC) evolved a code of life and behaviour which stressed the avoidance of pain, but since his time it has been stood on its head to signify the active seeking of pleasure – and particularly the pleasures of the table. Indeed, when the word epicure (which arrived via Latin epicūrus) was introduced into English it was even used for a ‘glutton’ – since toned down somewhat to ‘connoisseur of fine food and wine’.
fragile: fragile: [17] Fragile and frail [13] are doublets: that is to say, they have the same ultimate source but have evolved in different ways. In this case the source was Latin fragilis ‘breakable’, a derivative of the same base (*frag-) as produced frangere ‘break’ (whence English fractious). Fragile was acquired either directly from the Latin adjective or via French fragile, but frail passed through Old French frale or frele on its way to English. Other English words to come from *frag- include fragment [15] (from Latin fragmentum) and saxifrage, literally ‘rockbreaker’.
=> fraction, fracture, fragment, frail, saxifrage
if: if: [OE] The Old English version of if was gif, but its initial g was closer to modern English y in pronunciation than to g, and the conjunction gradually evolved through Middle English yif to if. It is not known where it ultimately came from; it is evidently connected with Old High German iba ‘condition’ and Old Norse ef ‘doubt’, but whether it started life as a noun like these or was from the beginning a conjunction is not clear. Its surviving Germanic relatives are German ob ‘whether’ and Dutch of ‘if’.
instant: instant: [15] Latin instāre meant ‘be present’ (it was a compound verb formed from the prefix in- ‘upon’ and stāre ‘stand’). Its present participle instāns was used adjectivally for ‘present’, and hence by extension for ‘urgent’. The latter was actually the meaning originally taken up by English, but it has now virtually died out. ‘Present’ was introduced in the mid-16th century (it now survives in the abbreviation inst, used in giving dates to signify ‘the present month’), and by the end of the century this had evolved into the main current sense ‘immediate’.

The noun instant ‘moment’ comes from medieval Latin tempus instāns ‘present time’. Derived from instāns was the Latin noun instantia ‘presence, urgency’. Again it was the latter that originally came into English with instance [14]. The main modern sense ‘example’, first recorded in the 16th century, appears to come ultimately from a semantic progression in medieval Latin from ‘urgency’ to ‘eager solicitation’ and hence to ‘legal pleading’.

Further metaphoricization took it on to ‘new argument or example adduced to counter a previous one’, and hence in due course to simply ‘example’.
=> instance, stand, station, statue
main: main: [OE] Main goes back to prehistoric Germanic *mag- ‘be able, have power’ (source also of English may and might, and distantly related to machine). From it was descended Old English mægen ‘strength’. This now survives as a noun only in the expression with might and main, but it was also used attributively in Old English to mean ‘of large size, great’, and by the 13th century (helped along partly by the related Old Norse megenn or megn ‘strong’) it was being used as an adjective in its own right. At first it still meant just ‘large’, but by the 15th century its modern sense ‘chief’ had evolved.
=> may, might
marzipan: marzipan: [19] The word marzipan has long puzzled etymologists. An elaborate theory was formulated in the early 20th century that traced it back to Arabic mawthabān ‘king who sits still’. That was applied by the Saracens to a medieval Venetian coin with a figure of the seated Christ on it. A series of fairly implausible semantic changes led from ‘coin’ via ‘box’ to ‘confectionery’, while the form of the word supposedly evolved in Italian to marzapane.

This turns out to be completely wide of the mark (not surprisingly), but the truth seems scarcely less remarkable. In Burma (now Myanmar) there is a port called Martaban, which was renowned in the Middle Ages for the jars of preserves and fruits exported from there to Europe. The name of the place came to be associated with its products, and in Italian, as marzapane, it denoted a type of sweetmeat (-pane for -ban suggests that some people subconsciously connected the word with Italian pane ‘bread’). Marzapane and its relatives in other languages (such as early modern French marcepain) entered English in the 16th century, and from the confusion of forms the consensus spelling marchpane emerged.

This remained the standard English word for ‘marzipan’ until the 19th century, when marzipan was borrowed from German; this was an alteration of Italian marzapane, based on the misconception that it came from Latin marci pānis ‘Mark’s bread’.
more: more: [OE] The Indo-European term for ‘more’ was *meis (it was formed from the same base as produced Latin magis ‘more’, source of Spanish mas ‘more’ and English master, and Latin magnus ‘large’, source of English magnitude). Its Germanic descendant was *maiz, which evolved into modern German mehr ‘more’, and also into Old English mā ‘more’, which survived dialectally until fairly recently as mo. From the adverb *maiz was derived the adjective *maizon, and it was this that has given English more. Most is, of course, closely related.
=> magnitude, master, most
morning: morning: [13] The Old English word for ‘morning’ was morgen. It came from a prehistoric Germanic *murganaz (source also of German, Dutch, and Danish morgen ‘morning’), and links have been suggested with forms such as Old Church Slavonic mruknati ‘darken’ and Lithuanian mirgeti ‘twinkle’, which may point to an underlying etymological notion of the ‘glimmer of morning twilight’.

By the Middle English period the word morgen had evolved to what we now know as morn, and morning was derived from it on the analogy of evening. A parallel development of morgen was to Middle English morwe, from which we get modern English morrow (and hence tomorrow).
=> morn, tomorrow
most: most: [OE] Like more, most comes ultimately from prehistoric Germanic *maiz. Addition of the superlative suffix produced *maistaz, which passed into Old English as mǣst. This subsequently evolved to most in Middle English under the influence of more.
=> magnitude, master, more
mother: mother: [OE] The ancestral Indo-European word for ‘mother’ was *māter-, which has descendants in virtually all the modern European languages. It was probably based on the syllable ma, suggested by the burbling of a suckling baby, which also lies behind English mama, mamma (and indeed mammal). Amongst its immediate descendants were Latin māter (source of English madrigal, material, maternal, matrimony, matrix, matron, and matter) and Greek métēr (from which English gets metropolis).

In prehistoric Germanic it evolved to *mōthar-, which has differentiated to German mutter, Dutch moeder, Swedish and Danish moder, and English mother.
=> madrigal, mamma, mammal, material, maternal, matrimony, matrix, matron, matter, metropolis
mouse: mouse: [OE] Mouse is an ancient word, with relatives today in all the Germanic and Slavic languages. Its Indo-European ancestor was *mūs-, which produced Greek mūs, Latin mūs (something of a dead end: the modern Romance languages have abandoned it), Sanskrit mūs (source, via a very circuitous route, of English musk), and prehistoric Germanic *mūs-.

This has evolved into German maus, Dutch muis, Swedish and Danish mus, and English mouse. And the Slavic branch of the ‘mouse’-family includes Russian mysh’, Polish mysz, and Serbo- Croat mish. English relatives of mouse include muscle and mussel (ultimately the same word) and marmot [17], which goes back to a Vulgar Latin accusative form *mūrem montis ‘mouse of the mountain’.
=> marmot, muscle, musk, mussel
nail: nail: [OE] The Indo-European ancestor of nail was *nogh- or *onogh-. The latter was the source of Latin unguis (which evolved into French ongle and Italian unghia and has given English ungulate [19]) and Greek ónux (source of English onyx). Both these strands refer only to the sort of nails that grow on fingers and toes, but the Germanic branch of the family (which has come from *nogh- through a prehistoric Germanic *naglaz) has differentiated into a ‘fastening pin’ – originally of wood, latterly of metal.

Hence English nail and German nagel cover both meanings (although Dutch and Swedish nagel and Danish negl are used only for the anatomical ‘nail’).
=> onyx, ungulate
name: name: [OE] Name is an ancient word, which traces its history back to Indo-European *-nomen-. This has produced Latin nōmen (source of English nominate, noun, etc), Greek ónoma (source of English anonymous [17] – etymologically ‘nameless’ – and synonym [16]), Welsh enw, and Russian imja, among many others. Its prehistoric Germanic descendant was *namōn, which has evolved to German and English name, Dutch naam, Swedish namn, and Danish navn.
=> anonymous, nominate, noun, synonym
ox: ox: [OE] Ox is an ancient word, traceable back to a prehistoric Indo-European *uksín-. This also produced Welsh ych ‘bull’, Irish oss ‘stag’, and Sanskrit ukshán ‘bull’, and it has been speculated that there may be some connection with Sanskrit uks- ‘emit semen’ and Greek hugrós ‘moist’, as if *uksín- denoted etymologically ‘male animal’.

If this was so, the ‘seed-bearing’ function had clearly been lost sight of by the time it had evolved to Germanic *okhson, which was reserved for a ‘castrated bull’. Ox’s modern Germanic relatives are German ochse (taken over by English in the compound aurochs ‘extinct wild ox’ [18], which etymologically means ‘original or primeval ox’), Dutch os, Swedish oxe, and Danish okse.
=> aurochs
person: person: [13] Latin persōna originally denoted a ‘mask, particularly one worn by an actor’ (it may have been borrowed from Etruscan phersu ‘mask’). It gradually evolved through ‘character played by an actor’ (a meaning preserved in English persona [20], a term introduced by Jungian psychology) to ‘individual human being’. It entered English via Old French persone, and by the normal processes of phonetic development has become parson.

But this in the Middle English period was hived off (for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained) to ‘priest’, and the original Latinate spelling person was restored for ‘human being’. Other derivatives to have reached English include impersonate [17], personage [15], personal [14], personality [14], and, via French, personnel [19].
=> impersonate, parson, personnel
picture: picture: [15] Picture and paint are very closely related. The Latin verb pingere ‘paint’ was the source of English paint, and its past participial stem pict- produced a noun, pictūra ‘painting’, which was eventually to become English picture. The same source produced English depict [17] and Pict [OE] (etymologically the ‘painted’ or ‘tattooed’ people), while its ultimate ancestor, the Indo-European base *pik-, *pig- ‘cut’, also evolved Latin pigmentum ‘colouring substance’, from which English got pigment [14] and, via Spanish, pimento [17].
=> depict, paint, pigment, pimento
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
pile: pile: English has three words pile. The commonest, ‘heap’ [15], originally meant ‘pillar’. It comes ultimately from Latin pīla ‘pillar’, source also of English pilaster, pillar, etc. This evolved in meaning to ‘pier or harbour wall made of stones’, and inspired a derived verb pīlāre ‘heap up’ (source of English compile [14]).

The sense ‘heap’ came to the fore in Old French pile, and passed into English. Pile ‘post driven into the ground’ [OE] was borrowed into Old English from Latin pīlum ‘javelin’. It was originally used for a ‘throwing spear’, ‘arrow’, or ‘spike’, and its present-day use did not emerge (via ‘pointed stake or post’) until the Middle English period. Pile ‘nap on cloth, carpets, etc’ [15] probably comes via Anglo-Norman pyle from Latin pilus ‘hair’ (which may be distantly related to English pillage and pluck, and lies behind English depilatory [17]).
=> compile, pilaster, pillar; depilatory
pipe: pipe: [OE] The etymological notion underlying pipe is of a ‘piping’ sound. The word goes back to a Common Romance *pīpa, a derivative of the Latin verb pīpāre ‘chirp’. This was formed from the base *pīp-, imitative of the sounds made by young birds, which also lies behind English pigeon. Prehistoric Germanic took over *pīpa, and it has since evolved to German pfeife, Dutch pijp, Swedish pipa, and English pipe. By the time it reached English it had broadened out semantically from its original ‘tubular wind instrument which makes a piping sound’ to ‘tube’ in general.
=> pigeon
pit: pit: English has two words pit. The older, ‘hole’ [OE], comes ultimately from Latin puteus ‘pit, well’ (source also of French puits ‘well, shaft’), but reached English via a Germanic route. It was borrowed in prehistoric times into West Germanic as *putti, which has evolved into German pfütze ‘pool’, Dutch put ‘pit’, and English pit. Pit ‘fruit-stone’ [19] may have been borrowed from Dutch pit, which goes back to a prehistoric West Germanic *pithan, source of English pith [OE].
=> pith
pleurisy: pleurisy: [14] Greek pleurá, a word of unknown origin, denoted ‘side’ or ‘rib’. It came to be used as an anatomical term for the ‘inner lining of the chest, containing the lungs’, and the derivative pleurítis ‘inflammation of the chest lining’ was coined (apparently by the physician Hippocrates). This passed into Latin as pleurītis, which in post-classical times evolved to pleurisis. Old French took this over as pleurisie, whence English pleurisy.
plume: plume: [14] Latin plūma originally denoted ‘down, feathers’ (it is probably related to English fleece). Eventually, though, it came to signify a ‘single feather’, and evolved in this sense to Italian piuma, Spanish pluma, and French plume – source of English plume. The derivative plumage [15] originated in Old French.
=> fleece, plumage
pool: pool: Pool of water [OE] and pool ‘collective amount’ [17] are distinct words in English. The former comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *pōl-, source also of German pfuhl and Dutch poel. The latter was borrowed from French poule ‘hen’, a descendant of Latin pullus ‘young chicken’ (source also of English pony, poultry, and pullet).

There was a French game called jeu de la poule, the ‘hen game’, involving throwing things at a hen – which you won as a prize if you hit it. Hence poule came to be used figuratively for ‘target’, and also for ‘that which is at stake in a game’ – source of the original meaning of English pool, ‘stake’. This evolved via ‘stake made up of players’ contributions’ to ‘collective amount’ and ‘collective resource’. Pool the snooker-like game is the same word; the game was originally played for a collective stake.
=> foal, pony, poultry, pullet
pound: pound: English has three distinct words pound. The measure of weight and unit of currency [OE] goes back ultimately to Latin pondō ‘12- ounce weight’, a relative of pondus ‘weight’ (source of English ponder) and pendere ‘weigh’ (source of English pension and poise). It was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic as *pundo, which has evolved into German pfund.

Dutch pond, Swedish pund, and English pound. Its monetary use comes from the notion of a ‘pound’ weight of silver. Pound ‘enclosure’ [14] is of unknown origin. It existed in Old English times in the compound pundfald, which has become modern English pinfold, and pond is a variant form of it. Pound ‘crush’ [OE] is almost equally mysterious.

In Old English it was pūnian (it did not acquire its final d until the 16th century, in fact), and it has been traced back to a Germanic *pūn-, which also produced Dutch puin ‘rubbish’.
=> pendant, pension, poise, ponder; pinfold, pond
press: press: English has two words press. The commoner, and older, ‘exert force, push’ [14], comes via Old French presser from Latin pressāre, a verb derived from the past participle of premere ‘press’ (source of English print). The corresponding noun press (which actually arrived in English a century earlier in the now archaic sense ‘crowd’) originated as a derivative of the Old French verb.

Derived verbs in English include compress [14], depress [14], express, impress [14], oppress [14], repress [14], and suppress [14]. The other press, ‘force’ [16], is now found virtually only in the expression ‘press into service’ and in the compound press-gang [17]. It originally denoted ‘compel to join the navy, army, etc’, and was an alteration, under the influence of press ‘exert force’, of prest ‘pay recruits’.

This was a verbal use of Middle English prest ‘money given to recruits’, which was borrowed from Old French prest ‘loan’. This in turn was a derivative of the verb prester ‘lend’, which went back to Latin praestāre ‘provide’, a compound formed from the prefix prae- ‘before’ and stāre ‘stand’. Related to praestāre was Latin praestō ‘at hand’, from which have evolved French prêt ‘ready’ and Italian and Spanish presto ‘quick’ (English borrowed the Italian version as presto [16]).
=> compress, depress, express, impress, oppress, print, repress, suppress; presto, station
promise: promise: [14] Latin prōmittere originally meant simply ‘send forth’ (it was a compound verb formed from the prefix prō- ‘forward’ and mittere ‘send’, source of English mission, missile, transmit, etc). But it soon evolved metaphorically via ‘say in advance, foretell’ to ‘cause to expect’ and hence ‘promise’ – the sense adopted into English via its past participle prōmissum.
=> admit, commit, missile, mission, submit, transmit
prompt: prompt: [14] Latin prōmere meant ‘bring out, show’ (it was a compound verb formed from the prefix prō- ‘forward, forth’ and emere ‘take’, source also of English assume [15], example, exempt, peremptory [16], redeem, and sample). Its past participle was promptus, and this was used as an adjective in which the notion of ‘shown, manifest’ evolved via ‘ready at hand, available’ to ‘quick, punctual’ – whence English prompt. In Spanish, Latin promptus became pronto, which was borrowed into English in the mid-19th century.
=> assume, example, exempt, peremptory, redeem, sample
prostitute: prostitute: [16] To prostitute something is etymologically to ‘set it up in front of everyone’. The word comes from the past participle of Latin prōstituere, a compound formed from the prefix prō- ‘before, in public’ and statuere ‘set, place’ (source of English statute). The Latin verb evolved semantically via ‘expose publicly’ and ‘offer for sale’ to ‘make available for sex in return for money’, and the feminine form of its past participle, prōstitūta, foreshadows its English noun descendant prostitute.
=> statue, status, statute
pumpkin: pumpkin: [17] Much as they look as though they had been blown up with a pump, pumpkins have no etymological connection with pumps. Greek pépōn denoted a variety of melon that was not eaten until it was fully ripe (the word was a noun use of the adjective pépōn ‘ripe’). Latin took it over as pepō, and passed it on to Old French as *pepon. Through a series of vicissitudes this evolved via popon to early modern French pompon. This was borrowed into English in the 16th century, and soon altered to pompion; and in the 17th century the native diminutive suffix -kin was grafted on to it to produce pumpkin.
purchase: purchase: [13] To purchase something is etymologically to ‘hunt it down’. It comes from Old French pourchacier ‘pursue’, hence ‘try to obtain’, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix pour- and chacier ‘pursue’ (source of English chase). It arrived in English meaning ‘obtain’. This sense had virtually died out by the end of the 17th century, but not before it had evolved in the 14th century to ‘buy’.
=> chase
quaint: quaint: [13] Quaint was once a more wholehearted term of approval than it is now. In Middle English it meant ‘clever’ or ‘finely or skilfully made’. Its current sense ‘pleasantly curious’ did not emerge until the 18th century. It comes via Old French coint from Latin cognitus ‘known’, the past participle of cognōscere ‘know’ (source of English recognize). The word’s meaning evolved in Old French via the notion of someone who ‘knows’ about something, and hence is an expert at it or is skilful in doing it.
=> cognition, recognize
quash: quash: [14] Quash goes back ultimately to Latin quatere ‘shake’ (source also of English rescue [14], which etymologically means ‘shake off, drive away’, and of concussion and percussion). From it evolved quassāre ‘shake to pieces, break’, which passed into Old French as quasser (its modern descendant is casser, from which English gets cashier ‘dismiss from the army’). English took quasser over as quash. Squash [16] comes ultimately from the Vulgar Latin derivative *exquassāre.
=> concussion, percussion, rescue, squash
quilt: quilt: [13] The ultimate source of quilt is Latin culcita ‘mattress’, which passed into English via Old French cuilte. Its function gradually evolved from that of a mattress for lying on to that of a coverlet for lying under. A long-standing characteristic of such quilts is that their stuffing is held in place by cross-stitching. This does not emerge as a distinct meaning of the verb quilt (‘sew padded cloth in a crisscross pattern’) until the mid-16th century, but it is reflected in the medieval Latin term culcita puncta ‘pricked mattress’ – that is, a mattress that has been stitched.

This passed into English via Old French as counterpoint, which was subsequently altered, by association with pane ‘panel’, to counterpane [17].
=> counterpane
rain: rain: [OE] Rain is an exclusively Germanic word, not shared by any other language group in the Indo-European family. Its prehistoric ancestor *reg- has evolved into German and Dutch regen, Swedish and Danish regn, and English rain. There may be some connection with Old Norse rakr ‘wet’.
rank: rank: English has two words rank. The one meaning ‘row, line’ [16], and hence ‘position of seniority’, was borrowed from Old French ranc (source also of English range), which goes back via Frankish *hring to a prehistoric Germanic *khrengaz ‘circle, ring’ (ancestor of English ring). Rank ‘absolute, downright’ [OE], as in ‘rank bad manners’, has had an eventful semantic history.

It originally meant ‘haughty’ and ‘full-grown’, and came from a prehistoric Germanic *rangkaz, which also produced Old Norse rakkr ‘erect’. ‘Full-grown’ evolved via ‘growing vigorously, luxuriant’ (which still survives) into ‘gross, disgusting’, on which the present-day intensive usage is based.
=> range, ring
rear: rear: There are two separate words rear in English. The older, ‘raise’ [OE], is a descendant of prehistoric Germanic *raizjan, which also produced Old Norse reisa, source of English raise. The Germanic verb denoted literally ‘cause to rise’, and was derived from *reisan, which evolved into English rise. Rear ‘hind’ [16] is descended ultimately from Latin retrō- ‘behind’, but it is not clear whether it came into the language as an abbreviation of arrear [18], which goes back via Old French arere to medieval Latin adretrō ‘to the rear’ (the Anglo- Norman noun areres existed in the 14th century, so the chronological disparity may not be crucial), or was extracted from rearguard [15], a borrowing from Old French rereguarde.
=> raise, rise; arrear, retro
reproach: reproach: [15] The -proach of reproach is the same as that of approach. Both go back ultimately to Latin prope ‘near’. From this was formed the Vulgar Latin verb *repropiāre ‘bring back near’, which, by the time it reached Old French as reprochier, had evolved metaphorically towards the notion of ‘bringing somebody face to face with something for which they should be blamed’.
=> approach
rhubarb: rhubarb: [14] The Greeks had two words for ‘rhubarb’: rhéon, which was borrowed from Persian rēwend, and which evolved into Latin rheum, now the plant’s scientific name; and rha, which is said to have come from Rha, an ancient name of the river Volga, in allusion to the fact that rhubarb was once grown on its banks (rhubarb is native to China, and was once imported to Europe via Russia).

In medieval Latin rhubarb became known as rha barbarum ‘barbarian rhubarb, foreign rhubarb’, again with reference to the plant’s exotic origins; and in due course association with Latin rheum altered this to rheubarbarum. It passed into English via Vulgar Latin *rheubarbum and Old French reubarbe.
=> barbarian
rich: rich: [OE] The original meaning of rich was ‘mighty, noble’. It goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *reg- ‘move in a straight line’, hence ‘direct’, hence ‘rule’, source of English right, Latin rēx ‘king’ (ancestor of English regal, royal, etc), and Latin regere ‘rule’ (ancestor of English regent, regiment, etc).

The Old Celtic equivalent of Latin rēx was rīx ‘king’. This was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic, where it subsequently evolved into German reich, Dutch rijk, Swedish rik, Danish rig, and English rich. (It was also taken over by the Romance languages, giving French riche, Italian ricco, etc.) The sense ‘mighty, noble’ survived in English into the late Middle Ages, but ‘wealthy’ had started to develop in Germanic, and eventually saw off ‘mighty’.
=> regal, right, royal
right: right: [OE] Right goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *reg- ‘move in a straight line’, hence ‘direct’, hence ‘rule’, which also produced English rich and Latin rēx ‘king’ (source of English regal, royal, etc). Combination with the past participial suffix *-to- resulted in Latin rēctus ‘straight, right’, which lies behind English rectify, rectum, etc, and prehistoric Germanic *rekhtaz, which has evolved into German and Dutch recht, Swedish rätt, Danish ret, and English right.

The use of the word as the opposite of left, paralleled in German and Dutch but not in the Scandinavian languages, derives from the notion that the right hand is the ‘correct’ hand to use. (French droit ‘right’ goes back to Latin dīrēctus, a derivative of rēctus.) The derived righteous [OE] etymologically means ‘in the right way’; it was compounded in the Old English period from riht ‘right’ and wīs ‘way’ (ancestor of the modern English suffix -wise).
=> address, direct, raj, rector, regal, regiment, royal