英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

grenade: grenade: [16] The original grenades were small spherical explosive-filled cases with a wick on top. In shape, they bore more than a passing resemblance to pomegranates. The Old French term for ‘pomegranate’ was pome grenate, or just grenate for short, and it was this abbreviated form, altered to grenade under the influence of the related Spanish granada, that was applied to the explosive device. Grenadier [17] came from the French derivative grenadier ‘grenadethrower’.
=> grain, grenadier, pomegranate
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
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.
fuse (n.): "combustible cord or tube for lighting an explosive device," also fuze, 1640s, from Italian fuso, literally "spindle" (the ignition device so called for its shape, because the originals were long, thin tubes filled with gunpowder), from Latin fusus "a spindle," which is of uncertain origin. Influenced by French cognate fusée "spindleful of hemp fiber," and obsolete English fusee "musket fired by a fuse," which is from French. Meaning "device that breaks an electrical circuit" is first recorded 1884, so named for its shape, but erroneously attributed to fuse (v.) because it melts.
mine (n.2): explosive device, by 1850, from mine (v.2).
torpedo (n.): 1520s, "electric ray" (flat fish that produces an electric charge to stun prey or for defense), from Latin torpedo "electric ray," originally "numbness, sluggishness" (the fish so called from the effect of being jolted by the ray's electric discharges), from torpere "be numb" (see torpor).
Torpedo. A fish which while alive, if touched even with a long stick, benumbs the hand that so touches it, but when dead is eaten safely. [Johnson]
The sense of "explosive device used to blow up enemy ships" is first recorded 1776, as a floating mine; the self-propelled version is from c. 1900. Related: Torpedic.