英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

advice [advice 词源字典]: advice: [13] Like modern French avis, advice originally meant ‘opinion’, literally ‘what seems to one to be the case’. In Latin, ‘seem’ was usually expressed by the passive of the verb vidēre ‘see’; thus, vīsum est, ‘it seems’ (literally ‘it is seen’). With the addition of the dative first person pronoun, one could express the notion of opinion: mihi vīsum est, ‘it seems to me’.

It appears either that this was partially translated into Old French as ce m’est a vis, or that the past participle vīsum was nominalized in Latin, making possible such phrases as ad (meum) vīsum ‘in (my) view’; but either way it is certain that a(d)- became prefixed to vīs(um), producing a new word, a(d)vis, for ‘opinion’.

It was originally borrowed into English without the d, but learned influence had restored the Latin spelling by the end of the 15th century. As to its meaning, ‘opinion’ was obsolete by the mid 17th century, but already by the late 14th century the present sense of ‘counsel’ was developing. The verb advise [14] probably comes from Old French aviser, based on avis.
=> vision, visit[advice etymology, advice origin, 英语词源]
also: also: [OE] Also was a late Old English compound formed from all ‘exactly, even’ and swa ‘so’; it meant ‘in just this way, thus’, and hence (recalling the meaning of German also ‘therefore’) ‘similarly’. These two uses died out in, respectively, the 15th and 17th centuries, but already by the 13th century ‘similarly’ was developing into the current sense ‘in addition’. As came from also in the 12th century. In Old English, the notion of ‘in addition’ now expressed by also was verbalized as eke.
=> as
chaste: chaste: [13] Chaste comes via Old French from Latin castus ‘pure’. The notion of making someone pure, by correcting or reproving them, was expressed in Latin by the derived verb castīgāre, which passed into English in the 17th century as castigate. Old French, however, had already adopted it as chastier, which in the 12th century produced the now obsolete English verb chaste ‘discipline’. From it were formed the derivatives chastise [14] and chasten [16]. Also ultimately from Latin castus is English caste.
=> caste, chasten, chastise, incest
complaisant: complaisant: [17] Complaisant and complacent [17] are virtual doublets. Both come from Latin complacēre ‘please greatly’ (a compound verb formed from placēre, source of English please), but they reached English along different routes. Complaisant came via French, from complaisant, the present participle of complaire ‘gratify’, but complacent was a direct borrowing from the Latin present participle. It originally meant simply ‘pleasant, delightful’, and did not take on its present derogatory connotations (at first expressed by the now obsolete complacential) until the mid 18th century.
=> complacent, please
effrontery: effrontery: [18] The notion of ‘audacity’ or ‘impudence’ is often expressed in terms of ‘exposing or pushing forward the face’: a ‘barefaced lie’ or ‘putting on a bold front’, for instance. And effrontery is no exception. It comes ultimately from late Latin effrōns ‘barefaced, shameless’, a compound adjective formed from the prefix ex- ‘out of’ and frōns ‘forehead’ (source of English front).

This seems subsequently to have been reformulated along the lines of its original components, giving Vulgar Latin *exfrontātus, source of Old French esfronte. This in turn developed to French effronté, whose derived noun effronterie was acquired by English as effrontery.
=> front
emphasis: emphasis: [16] In Greek, émphasis originally meant simply ‘appearance’. It was a derivative of emphaínein ‘exhibit, indicate’, a compound verb formed from the prefix en- ‘in’ and phaínein ‘show’ (source of English phase). It came to be used as a grammatical term denoting ‘implication’ (as opposed to ‘directly expressed meaning’) and passed in this sense via Latin emphasis into English. Its main modern use, ‘special importance placed on something’, derives from the stressing of a particular word or phrase in speech to show that it is intended to imply something other than its literal meaning might seem to suggest.
=> phase
express: express: [14] Something that is expressed is literally ‘pressed out’. The word comes via Old French from Vulgar Latin *expressāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and pressāre ‘press’. Its meaning developed metaphorically from ‘press out’ to ‘form by pressure’ (presumably applied originally to modelling in clay or some similar substance, and subsequently to sculpture and then painting), and finally to ‘make known in words’.

The Vulgar Latin verb was in fact moving in on territory already occupied by its classical Latin forerunner exprimere (source of French exprimer ‘express’ and perhaps of English sprain [17]). The past participle of this was expressus, used adjectivally for ‘prominent, distinct, explicit’. Old French took it over as expres and passed it on to English in the 14th century.

By now its meaning was moving towards ‘intended for a particular purpose’, and in the 19th century it was applied to ‘special’ trains (as in ‘football specials’). It did not take long, however, for this to slip via ‘train for people wanting to go to a particular place, and therefore not stopping anywhere else’ to ‘fast train’. Hence the modern sense of express, ‘fast’, was born.
=> espresso, press, sprain
flamingo: flamingo: [16] Flamingos get their name from their reddish-pink plumage, which earned them the epithet ‘fire-bird’. This was expressed in Provençal (the language of southern French coastal areas, where flamingos abound) as flamenc, a compound formed from flama ‘flame’ (a descendant of Latin flamma) and the Germanic suffix -ing ‘belonging to’. English acquired the word via Portuguese flamengo. (It has, incidentally, no etymological connection with flamenco ‘Spanish dance’ [19], which comes from the Spanish word for ‘Flemish’: the people of Flanders seem to have had a reputation in the Middle Ages for bright, flamboyant dress, and hence ‘Flemish’ in Spanish became synonymous with ‘gipsy-like’.)
=> flame
fruit: fruit: [12] English acquired fruit via Old French fruit from Latin frūctus, a source more clearly on display in fructify [14], fructose [19], etc. The underlying meaning of the Latin noun seems to have been ‘enjoyment of that which is produced’, for it came, like frūx (source of English frugal), from a base which also produced the verb fruī ‘enjoy’.

By classical times, however, it had passed from ‘enjoyment’ to the ‘product’ itself – the ‘rewards’ of an enterprise, the ‘return’ on an investment, or the ‘produce’ obtained from the soil or from farm animals. When it reached English this latter meaning had narrowed down somewhat, but it was still capable of being used far more broadly, for any ‘edible vegetable’, than we would do today, except in certain archaic expressions such as ‘fruits of the earth’.

The modern restriction to the edible reproductive body of a tree, bush, etc dates from the 13th century. English retains, of course, the more general sense ‘product, result’, although this is now usually expressed by the plural fruits.
=> fructify, frugal
his: his: [OE] His originated as the standard genitive form of the masculine personal pronoun he, with the genitive ending -s – what in modern English would be expressed as of him. But comparatively early in the Old English period it began to replace the ancestral third person possessive adjective sīn (a relative of modern German sein ‘his’), and by the year 1000 it was also being used as a possessive pronoun, as in ‘It’s his’.
=> he
iconoclast: iconoclast: [17] The original iconoclasts were members of the Eastern Orthodox church in the 8th and 9th centuries AD who were opposed to the use or worship of religious images. In more extreme cases their opposition took the form of smashing icons (the word iconoclast comes via medieval Latin from medieval Greek eikonoklástēs, a compound formed from eikón ‘icon’ and the verb klan ‘break’).

The term subsequently came to be applied to extreme Protestants in England in the 16th and 17th centuries who expressed their disapproval of graven images (and popish practices in general) in similar ways. Its general use for an ‘attacker of orthodoxy’ dates from the early 19th century.
kiss: kiss: [OE] Kiss is a widespread Germanic word, represented also in German kūssen, Dutch kussen, Swedish kyssa, and Danish kysse. It probably goes back to some prehistoric syllable imitative of the sound or action of kissing, such as *ku or *kus, which would also lie behind Greek kunein ‘kiss’, Sanskrit cumb- ‘kiss’, and Hittite kuwass- ‘kiss’. There is not sufficient linguistic evidence, however, to show whether the Indo-Europeans expressed affection by kissing each other.
kowtow: kowtow: [19] The approved Chinese method of signifying respect for the emperor or other august personages was to prostrate oneself so that one’s forehead touched the ground. This was expressed in Mandarin Chinese by the term ke tóu (ke means ‘knock, bump’ and tóu ‘head’). English took the word over in the early 19th century and spelled it in various experimental ways (koo-too, ka-tou, kotow, etc) before settling on kowtow in the early 20th century.

The first writer on record as using the word in the metaphorical sense ‘defer servilely’ was Benjamin Disraeli in his Vivian Grey 1826: ‘The Marqess kotooed like a first-rate Mandarin, and vowed “that her will was his conduct”.’
nor: nor: [14] Nor began life in the Old English period as nother. This was a compound formed from the negative particle and an unrecorded *ōther, a word related to either which expressed the notion of ‘alternative’. In the Middle English period this was contracted to nor.
=> either
precise: precise: [16] Something that is precise is etymologically ‘cut off in front’. The word was acquired via French précis (subsequently borrowed as the noun précis ‘summary’ in the 18th century) from Latin praecīsus, an adjectival use of the past participle of praecīdere ‘shorten’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix prae- ‘in front’ and caedere ‘cut’ (source also of English concise, decide, excise, etc). The notion of being ‘shortened’ gradually slipped via ‘expressed shortly, leaving out extraneous matter’ to ‘exact’.
=> concise, decide, excise, précis
scapegoat: scapegoat: [16] In biblical times the ritual of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, included a ceremony involving two goats: one was sacrificed to God, and the other was sent off into the wilderness as the symbolic bearer of the people’s sins. This second goat was termed ‘azāzēl. That appears to have been a proper name, said in Jewish tradition to be that of a demon to whom the goat was sent, and may be linked with Aziz, the name of a Canaanite god.

Later commentators, however, interpreted it as equivalent to Hebrew ‘ēz ōzēl, which means ‘goat that departs’. In the Latin of the Vulgate, that was rendered as caper emissarius (whence the French expression bouc émissaire, literally ‘goat sent forth’), and William Tindale, in his 1530 translation of the Bible, expressed it as scapegoat (the first part, scape, is a shortened form of escape).

The modern metaphorical application to someone who takes the blame for others’ faults dates from the early 19th century.
sentence: sentence: [13] ‘Complete grammatical unit’ is a comparatively recent meaning of sentence, which only emerged in English in the 15th century. Its Latin ancestor sententia originally meant ‘feeling’, for it was a derivative of sentīre ‘feel’ (source also of English sense, sentiment, etc). It subsequently broadened out to ‘opinion, judgment’, which was the starting point for the use of English sentence for ‘judicial declaration of punishment’. Sententia also came to denote ‘meaning’, and hence ‘meaning expressed in words’ and ‘maxim’.

The former lies behind the grammatical sense of English sentence, while the latter survives in the derived adjective sententious [15].
=> sense, sententious
sycophant: sycophant: [16] Sycophants are etymologically ‘fig-showers’. The word comes via Latin sychophanta from Greek súkophántēs, a compound formed from súkon ‘fig’ and -phántēs ‘shower’, a derivative of phaínein ‘show’ (source of English fancy, phantom, etc). Súkon (which probably came from a Semitic source that also produced Latin ficus ‘fig’, source of English fig) was used metaphorically for ‘cunt’, and hence for an ‘indecent gesture made by putting the thumb into the mouth or between two fingers’.

People who grassed on criminals were said to ‘show them the fig’ – ‘show them two fingers’, as it might be expressed in modern English. And so the term súkophántēs came to be used for an ‘informer’, and eventually, via ‘one who ingratiates himself by informing’, for a ‘flatterer’ or ‘toady’.
=> fancy, phantom, sycamore
agriculture (n.): mid-15c., from Late Latin agricultura "cultivation of the land," compound of agri cultura "cultivation of land," from agri, genitive of ager "a field" (see acre) + cultura "cultivation" (see culture (n.)). In Old English, the idea could be expressed by eorðtilþ.
am (v.): Old English eom "to be, to remain," (Mercian eam, Northumbrian am), from PIE *esmi- (cognates: Old Norse emi, Gothic im, Hittite esmi, Old Church Slavonic jesmi, Lithuanian esmi), from root *es-, the S-ROOT, which also yielded Greek esti-, Latin est, Sanskrit as-, and German ist.

In Old English it existed only in present tense, all other forms being expressed in the W-BASE (see were, was). This cooperative verb is sometimes referred to by linguists as *es-*wes-. Until the distinction broke down 13c., *es-*wes- tended to express "existence," with beon meaning something closer to "come to be" (see be).

Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2. earon/aron The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from use in English in the early 13c. (though it continues in German sind, the 3rd person plural of "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but aron (aren, arn, are, from Proto-Germanic *ar-, probably a variant of PIE root *es-) continued, and as am and be merged it encroached on some uses that previously had belonged to be. By the early 1500s it had established its place in standard English. Art became archaic in the 1800s.
armless (adj.): late 14c., of physical conditions, from arm (n.1) + -less. Meaning "without weapons" is attested from 1610s (from arm (n.2)), but that sense is more typically expressed by unarmed.
awake (v.): a merger of two Middle English verbs: 1. awaken, from Old English awæcnan (earlier onwæcnan; strong, past tense awoc, past participle awacen) "to awake, arise, originate," from a "on" + wacan "to arise, become awake" (see wake (v.)); and 2. awakien, from Old English awacian (weak, past participle awacode) "to awaken, revive; arise; originate, spring from," from a "on" (see a (2)) + wacian "to be awake, remain awake, watch" (see watch (v.)).

Both originally were intransitive only; the transitive sense being expressed by Middle English awecchen (from Old English aweccan) until later Middle English. In Modern English, the tendency has been to restrict the strong past tense and past participle (awoke, awoken) to the original intransitive sense and the weak inflection (awakened) to the transitive, but this never has been complete (see wake (v.); also compare awaken).
bifarious (adj.): 1650s, from Latin bifarius "twofold, double," probably originally "that which can be expressed in two ways" [Klein], from bi- (see bi-) + fari "to speak, say," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say" (see fame (n.)). Related: Bifariously.
bloviate (v.): 1857, American English, a Midwestern word for "to talk aimlessly and boastingly; to indulge in 'high falutin'," according to Farmer (1890), who seems to have been the only British lexicographer to notice it. He says it was based on blow (v.) on the model of deviate, etc.

It seems to have been felt as outdated slang already by late 19c. ("It was a leasure for him to hear the Doctor talk, or, as it was inelegantly expressed in the phrase of the period, 'bloviate' ...." ["Overland Monthly," San Francisco, 1872, describing a scene from 1860]), but it enjoyed a revival early 1920s during the presidency of Warren G. Harding, who wrote a notoriously ornate and incomprehensible prose (e.e. cummings eulogized him as "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors") at which time the word took on its connection with political speech; it faded again thereafter, but, with its derivative, bloviation, it enjoyed a revival in the 2000 U.S. election season that continued through the era of blogging.
cannot (v.): c. 1400, from can (v.1) + not. Old English expressed the notion by ne cunnan.
care-free (adj.): also carefree, "free from cares," 1795, from care (n.) + free (adj.). In Old English and Middle English this idea was expressed by careless.
dreadlocks (n.): 1960, from dread + locks (see lock (n.2)). The style supposedly based on that of East African warriors. So called from the dread they presumably aroused in beholders, but Rastafarian dread (1974) also has a sense of "fear of the Lord," expressed in part as alienation from contemporary society.
easy (adj.): c. 1200, "at ease, having ease, free from bodily discomfort and anxiety," from Old French aisie "comfortable, at ease, rich, well-off" (Modern French aisé), past participle of aisier "to put at ease," from aise (see ease (n.)). Sense of "not difficult, requiring no great labor or effort" is from late 13c.; of conditions, "offering comfort, pleasant," early 14c. Of persons, "lenient, kind, calm, gentle," late 14c. Meaning "readily yielding, not difficult of persuasion" is from 1610s. The concept of "not difficult" was expressed in Old English and early Middle English by eaþe (adv.), ieþe (adj.), apparently common West Germanic (compare German öde "empty, desolate," but of disputed origin.

Easy Street is from 1890. Easy money attested by 1889; to take it easy "relax" is from 1804 (be easy in same sense recorded from 1746); easy does it recorded by 1835. Easy rider (1912) was U.S. black slang for "sexually satisfying lover." The easy listening radio format is from 1961, defined by William Safire (in 1986) as, "the music of the 60's played in the 80's with the style of the 40's." Related: Easier; easiest.
edge (n.): Old English ecg "corner, edge, point," also "sword" (also found in ecgplega, literally "edge play," ecghete, literally "edge hate," both used poetically for "battle"), from Proto-Germanic *agjo (cognates: Old Frisian egg "edge;" Old Saxon eggia "point, edge;" Middle Dutch egghe, Dutch eg; Old Norse egg, see egg (v.); Old High German ecka, German Eck "corner"), from PIE root *ak- "sharp, pointed" (cognates: Sanskrit asrih "edge," Latin acies, Greek akis "point;" see acrid).

Spelling development of Old English -cg to Middle English -gg to Modern English -dge represents a widespread shift in pronunciation. To get the edge on (someone) is U.S. colloquial, first recorded 1911. Edge city is from Joel Garreau's 1992 book of that name. Razor's edge as a perilous narrow path translates Greek epi xyrou akmes. To be on edge "excited or irritable" is from 1872; to have (one's) teeth on edge is from late 14c., though "It is not quite clear what is the precise notion originally expressed in this phrase" [OED].
effable (adj.): "that may be (lawfully) expressed in words," 1630s, from French effable or directly, from Latin effabilis "utterable," from effari "to utter" (see ineffable). Now obsolete or archaic.
express (v.1): late 14c., "represent in visual arts; put into words," from Old French espresser, expresser "press, squeeze out; speak one's mind" (Modern French exprimer), Medieval Latin expressare, frequentative of Latin exprimere "represent, describe, portray, imitate, translate," literally "to press out" (source also of Italian espresso); the sense evolution here perhaps is via an intermediary sense such as "clay, etc., that under pressure takes the form of an image," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + pressare "to press, push," from Latin premere (see press (v.1)). Related: Expressed; expresses; expressing.
expressionless (adj.): 1831, "giving no expression," from expression + -less. Shelley used it with a sense of "unexpressed" (1819).
father (n.): Old English fæder "he who begets a child, nearest male ancestor;" also "any lineal male ancestor; the Supreme Being," and by late Old English, "one who exercises parental care over another," from Proto-Germanic *fader (cognates: Old Saxon fadar, Old Frisian feder, Dutch vader, Old Norse faðir, Old High German fatar, German vater; in Gothic usually expressed by atta), from PIE *pəter- "father" (cognates: Sanskrit pitar-, Greek pater, Latin pater, Old Persian pita, Old Irish athir "father"), presumably from baby-speak sound "pa." The ending formerly was regarded as an agent-noun affix.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

[Wordsworth, 1802]
The classic example of Grimm's Law, where PIE "p-" becomes Germanic "f-." Spelling with -th- (15c.) reflects widespread phonetic shift in Middle English that turned -der to -ther in many words, perhaps reinforced in this case by Old Norse forms; spelling caught up to pronunciation in 1500s (compare mother (n.), weather (n.)). As a title of various Church dignitaries from c. 1300; meaning "creator, inventor, author" is from mid-14c.; that of "anything that gives rise to something else" is from late 14c. As a respectful title for an older man, recorded from 1550s. Father-figure is from 1954. Fathers "leading men, elders" is from 1580s.
gerund (n.): 1510s, from Late Latin gerundium (also gerundivus modus), from Latin gerundum "to be carried out," gerundive of gerere "to bear, carry" (see gest). In Latin, a verbal noun used for all cases of the infinitive but the nominative; applied in English to verbal nouns in -ing. "So called because according to the old grammarians, the gerund prop[erly] expressed the doing or the necessity of doing something" [Century Dictionary]. Gerund-grinder "instructor in Latin grammar," also "pedant," is from 1710.
Gibson girl (n.): "woman considered stylish at the turn of the 20th century," 1894, named for U.S. artist and illustrator Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944), whose main model was his wife, Irene Langhorne (1873-1956). The Gibson cocktail (gin, vermouth, and a pearl onion) is attested by 1914, in some stories ascribed to him but the origin of the term is unknown.
"She looks like a Gibson girl" is not an uncommon saying; and to look like a Gibson girl, is not without its merits. Although our artist has expressed in his drawings disapproval of women usurping the spheres of men, his girls suggest intellectuality. He has none of the doll-like inanely pretty faces which artists used to give women in olden days. His girls look as if they would have opinions of their own and would act with discrimination in the affairs of life. They are tall and graceful and although not in the least like fashion plates, their clothes are becoming and fit perfectly. [National Magazine, May 1898]
idleness (n.): Old English idelnes "frivolity, vanity, emptiness; vain existence;" see idle + -ness. Old English expressed the idea we attach to in vain by in idelnisse. Spenser, Scott, and others use idlesse to mean the same thing in a positive, pleasant sense.
implication (n.): early 15c., "action of entangling," from Latin implicationem (nominative implicatio) "interweaving, entanglement," from past participle stem of implicare "involve, entangle, connect closely," from assimilated form of in- "into, in, on, upon" (see in- (2)) + plicare "to fold" (see ply (v.1)). Meaning "something implied (but not expressed)" is from 1550s.
left (adj.): c. 1200, from Kentish and northern English form of Old English lyft- "weak, foolish" (compare lyft-adl "lameness, paralysis," East Frisian luf, Dutch dialectal loof "weak, worthless"). It emerged 13c. as "opposite of right" (the left being usually the weaker hand), a derived sense also found in cognate Middle Dutch and Low German luchter, luft. But German link, Dutch linker "left" are from Old High German slinc and Middle Dutch slink "left," related to Old English slincan "crawl," Swedish linka "limp," slinka "dangle."

Replaced Old English winestra, literally "friendlier," a euphemism used superstitiously to avoid invoking the unlucky forces connected with the left side (see sinister). The Kentish word itself may have been originally a taboo replacement, if instead it represents PIE root *laiwo-, meaning "considered conspicuous" (represented in Greek laios, Latin laevus, and Russian levyi). Greek also uses a euphemism for "left," aristeros "the better one" (compare also Avestan vairyastara- "to the left," from vairya- "desirable"). But Lithuanian kairys "left" and Lettish kreilis "left hand" derive from a root that yields words for "twisted, crooked."

As an adverb from early 14c. As a noun from c. 1200. Political sense arose from members of a legislative body assigned to the left side of a chamber, first attested in English 1837 (by Carlyle, in reference to the French Revolution), probably a loan-translation of French la gauche (1791), said to have originated during the seating of the French National Assembly in 1789 in which the nobility took the seats on the President's right and left the Third Estate to sit on the left. Became general in U.S. and British political speech c. 1900.

Used since at least c. 1600 in various senses of "irregular, illicit;" earlier proverbial sense was "opposite of what is expressed" (mid-15c.). Phrase out in left field "out of touch with pertinent realities" is attested from 1944, from the baseball fielding position that tends to be far removed from the play. To have two left feet "be clumsy" is attested by 1902. The Left Bank of Paris (left bank of the River Seine, as you face downstream) has been associated with intellectual and artistic culture since at least 1893.
litotes (n.): rhetorical figure in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its opposite, from Greek litotes, literally "plainness, simplicity," from litos "smooth, plain, small, meager," from PIE root *(s)lei- "slimy, sticky, slippery" (hence "smooth"); see slime (n.).
merism (n.): 1894 in biological sense "repetition of parts in living things;" earlier in rhetoric, "synecdoche in which totality is expressed by contrasting parts" (such as high and low, young and old); from Modern Latin merismus, from Greek merismos "a dividing, division, a partition," from merizein "to divide," from meros "part, share" (see merit (n.)). Related: Merismatic.
multifarious (adj.): 1590s, from Latin multifarius "manifold," from multifariam (adv.) "on many sides; in many places or parts," perhaps originally "that which can be expressed in many ways," from multi- "many" (see multi-) + -fariam, adverbial suffix (compare bifariam "in two places"), from PIE *dwi-dhe- "making two." Related: Multifariously; multifariousness. Earlier forms of the word in English were multiphary (adv.); multipharie (adj.), both mid-15c.
myriad (n.): 1550s, from Middle French myriade and directly from Late Latin myrias (genitive myriadis) "ten thousand," from Greek myrias (genitive myriados) "a number of ten thousand, countless numbers," from myrios (plural myrioi) "innumerable, countless, infinite; boundless," as a definite number, "ten thousand" ("the greatest number in Greek expressed by one word," Liddell & Scott say), of unknown origin; perhaps from PIE *meue- "abundant" (cognates: Hittite muri- "cluster of grapes," Latin muto "penis," Middle Irish moth "penis"). Specific use is usually in translations from Greek or Latin.
nill (v.): Old English nylle, nelle "to be unwilling," from ne "no" (see no) + will (v.). Often paired with will; the construction in nill he, will he, once common, attested from c. 1300, surviving principally in willy-nilly, which, however, reverses the usual Middle English word order. Latin expressed a similar idea in nolens volens.
numinous (adj.): "divine, spiritual," 1640s, from Latin numen (genitive numinis) "divine will," properly "divine approval expressed by nodding the head," from nuere "to nod," from PIE *neu- "to nod" (cognates: Greek neuein "to nod") + -ous.
-ous: word-forming element making adjectives from nouns, meaning "having, full of, having to do with, doing, inclined to," from Old French -ous, -eux, from Latin -osus (compare -ose (1)). In chemistry, "having a lower valence than forms expressed in -ic."
Occam's razor: when two competing hypotheses explain the data equally well, choose the simpler. Or, as Sir William Hamilton puts it, "Neither more, nor more onerous, causes are to be assumed, than are necessary to account for the phenomena." Named for English philosopher William of Ockham or Occam (c. 1285-c. 1349), who expressed it with Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter ncccssitatem.
So called after William of Occam (died about 1349): but, as a historical fact, Occam does not make much use of this principle, which belongs rather to the contemporary nominalist William Durand de St. Pourçain (died 1332). [Century Dictionary]
oracle (n.): late 14c., "a message from a god, expressed by divine inspiration," from Old French oracle "temple, house of prayer; oracle" (12c.) and directly from Latin oraculum "divine announcement, oracle; place where oracles are given," from orare "pray, plead" (see orator), with material instrumental suffix -culo-. In antiquity, "the agency or medium of a god," also "the place where such divine utterances were given." This sense is attested in English from c. 1400.
order (n.): early 13c., "body of persons living under a religious discipline," from Old French ordre "position, estate; rule, regulation; religious order" (11c.), from earlier ordene, from Latin ordinem (nominative ordo) "row, rank, series, arrangement," originally "a row of threads in a loom," from Italic root *ord- "to arrange, arrangement" (source of ordiri "to begin to weave;" compare primordial), of unknown origin.

Meaning "a rank in the (secular) community" is first recorded c. 1300; meaning "command, directive" is first recorded 1540s, from the notion of "to keep in order." Military and honorary orders grew our of the fraternities of Crusader knights. Business and commerce sense is attested from 1837. In natural history, as a classification of living things, it is first recorded 1760. Meaning "condition of a community which is under the rule of law" is from late 15c.

Phrase in order to (1650s) preserves etymological notion of "sequence." The word reflects a medieval notion: "a system of parts subject to certain uniform, established ranks or proportions," and was used of everything from architecture to angels. Old English expressed many of the same ideas with endebyrdnes. In short order "without delay" is from 1834, American English; order of battle is from 1769.
parable (n.): mid-13c., parabol, modern form from early 14c., "saying or story in which something is expressed in terms of something else," from Old French parable "parable, parabolic style in writing" (13c.), from Latin parabola "comparison," from Greek parabole "a comparison, parable," literally "a throwing beside," hence "a juxtaposition," from para- "alongside" (see para- (1)) + bole "a throwing, casting, beam, ray," related to ballein "to throw" (see ballistics).

Replaced Old English bispell. In Vulgar Latin, parabola took on the meaning "word," hence Italian parlare, French parler "to speak" (see parley (n.)).
portrayal (n.): 1834, from portray + -al (2). The idea formerly was expressed by portray (n.), 1610s.