英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

ken [ken 词源字典]: ken: [OE] Once a widespread verb throughout English, ken is now restricted largely to Scotland, having taken over the semantic territory elsewhere monopolized by know. In Old English it actually meant not ‘know’ but ‘make known’; it was the causative version of cunnan ‘know’ (ancestor of modern English can). Its relatives in other Germanic languages made the change from ‘make known’ to ‘know’ early – hence German kennen ‘know’, for example In the case of English ken, the impetus is thought to have come from Old Norse kenna ‘know’. The derived noun ken, as in ‘beyond one’s ken’, dates from the 16th century.
=> can[ken etymology, ken origin, 英语词源]
broad-minded (adj.): 1590s; see broad (adj.) + minded. This abstract mental sense of broad existed in Old English; for example in bradnes "breadth," also "liberality."
-ite (1): from French -ite and directly from Latin -ita, from Greek -ites (fem. -itis), forming adjectives and nouns meaning "connected with or belonging to." Especially used in classical times to form ethnic and local designations (for example in Septuagint translations of Hebrew names in -i) and for names of gems and minerals.
leet (2): by 1997, ASCII alternative alphabet used mostly in Internet chat, derived from elite, and sometimes the word is used in that sense (for example in online gaming).
woman (n.): "adult female human," late Old English wimman, wiman (plural wimmen), literally "woman-man," alteration of wifman (plural wifmen) "woman, female servant" (8c.), a compound of wif "woman" (see wife) + man "human being" (in Old English used in reference to both sexes; see man (n.)). Compare Dutch vrouwmens "wife," literally "woman-man."
It is notable that it was thought necessary to join wif, a neuter noun, representing a female person, to man, a masc. noun representing either a male or female person, to form a word denoting a female person exclusively. [Century Dictionary]
The formation is peculiar to English and Dutch. Replaced older Old English wif and quean as the word for "female human being." The pronunciation of the singular altered in Middle English by the rounding influence of -w-; the plural retains the original vowel. Meaning "wife," now largely restricted to U.S. dialectal use, is attested from mid-15c. Woman-hater "misogynist" is from c. 1600. Women's work is from 1660s. Women's liberation is attested from 1966; women's rights is from 1840, with an isolated example in 1630s.
knop: "A knob, especially an ornamental one, for example in the stem of a wine glass", Middle English: from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch knoppe.