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alley [alley 词源字典]: alley: [14] Alley is related to French aller ‘go’. Old French aler (which came from Latin ambulāre ‘walk’, source of English amble and ambulance) produced the derived noun alee ‘act of walking’, hence ‘place where one walks, passage’.
=> amble, ambulance[alley etymology, alley origin, 英语词源]
attorney: attorney: [14] Attorney was formed in Old French from the prefix a- ‘to’ and the verb torner ‘turn’. This produced the verb atorner, literally ‘turn to’, hence ‘assign to’ or ‘appoint to’. Its past participle, atorne, was used as a noun with much the same signification as appointee – ‘someone appointed’ – and hence ‘someone appointed to act as someone else’s agent’, and ultimately ‘legal agent’.

Borrowed into English, over the centuries the term came to mean ‘lawyer practising in the courts of Common Law’ (as contrasted with a solicitor, who practised in the Equity Courts); but it was officially abolished in that sense by the Judicature Act of 1873, and now survives only in American English, meaning ‘lawyer’, and in the title Attorney- General, the chief law officer of a government.
=> turn
barley: barley: [OE] The Old English word for ‘barley’ was bære or bere. It came from an Indo- European base *bhar- which also gave Latin farīna ‘flour’ (from which English gets farinaceous [17]) and Old Norse farr ‘barley’. Barley (Old English bærlic) was in fact originally an adjective formed from this (like princely based on prince), and it was not until the early twelfth century that it came to be used as a noun. A barn [OE] was originally a building for storing barley. The Old English word ber(e)n was a compound formed from bere and ern or ærn ‘house’ (which may be related to English rest).
=> barn, farinaceous, farrago
beyond: beyond: [OE] Beyond is a lexicalization of the Old English phrase be geondan ‘from the farther side’. The second element comes from a prehistoric Germanic *jandana, formed on a base *jan- which also gave English the now largely dialectal yon [OE] and yonder [13]. To German it contributed the demonstrative adjective and pronoun jener ‘that’, and there are related demonstrative forms without the initial jin other Indo-European languages, including non-Germanic ones (Old Slavonic onu ‘that’, for instance, and Sanskrit āna- ‘this one’).
=> yon, yonder
bogey: bogey: [19] Bogey is one of a set of words relating to alarming or annoying manifestations of the supernatural (others are bogle, bug, bugbear, and possibly boggle and bugaboo) whose interconnections are difficult to sort out. A strand common to most of them is a northern origin, which has led some to suggest an ultimate source in Scandinavia – perhaps an ancestor of Norwegian dialect bugge ‘important man’ (which has also been linked with English big) might lie behind Middle English bugge, originally ‘scarecrow’ but later used for more spectral objects of terror.

Others, however, noting Welsh bwg, bwgan ‘ghost’, have gone with a Celtic origin. Of more recent uses of bogey, ‘policeman’ and ‘nasal mucus’ seem to have appeared between the two World Wars, while ‘golf score of one stroke over par’ is said to have originated at the Great Yarmouth Golf Club in the 1890s, when a certain Major Wellman exclaimed, during the course of a particularly trying round, that he must be playing against the ‘bogey-man’ (a figure in a popular song of the time). Bogie ‘undercarriage’ [19] is a different word (of if anything obscurer origin than bogey).
chimney: chimney: [14] Greek kámīnos meant ‘furnace’ (it was related to kamárā ‘vaulted room’, source of English camera and chamber). It was borrowed into Latin as camīnus, from which the adjective camīnātus ‘having a furnace, oven, etc’ was derived. By late Latin times this had become a noun, camīnāta, which passed into Old French as cheminee, and thence into English. The original meanings ‘fireplace’ and ‘stove’ persisted until the 19th century, but already in Old French the sense ‘flue’ had developed, which was finally to win out.
=> camera, chamber
cockney: cockney: [14] Etymologically, a cockney is a ‘cock’s egg’ (it comes from cokene, the old genitive plural of cock, and ey, the Middle English word for ‘egg’). This was a medieval term for a small or misshapen egg, the ‘runt’ of the clutch, supposedly laid by a cock, and it came to be applied (probably egged on by Middle English cocker ‘pamper’) to a ‘pampered child’ or ‘mother’s boy’.

In the 16th century we find that it has passed on to ‘town dweller’ (the notion being that people who lived in towns were soft and effete compared with countrymen), and by around 1600 it had started to mean more specifically ‘someone born in the city of London’. The popular definition ‘someone born within the sound of Bow bells’ is first reported by the lexicographer John Minsheu in 1617.
=> cock, egg
comfrey: comfrey: see fervent
convey: convey: [13] Etymologically, to convey something is to go with it on its way. It comes via Old French conveier from medieval Latin conviāre ‘accompany, escort’, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and via ‘way’. The verb’s Latin meaning was carried through into English, and though it died out in convey in the 18th century it survives in convoy [14], borrowed from a later French version of the word.
=> convoy, via
covey: covey: see incubate
curtsey: curtsey: see court
donkey: donkey: [18] The usual English word for ‘donkey’ from Anglo-Saxon times was ass, and donkey is not recorded until Francis Grose entered it in his Dictionary of the vulgar tonge 1785; ‘Donkey or Donkey Dick, a he or Jackass’. No one really knows where it came from. The usual explanation offered is that it was based on dun ‘brownish grey’ and the diminutive suffix -ey, with the intermediate k added in imitation of monkey (donkey originally rhymed with monkey).
=> dun
eye: eye: [OE] In Old English times eye was ēage, which is related to a whole range of words for ‘eye’ in other European languages. Its immediate derivation is from prehistoric Germanic *augon, which was also the source of German auge, Dutch oog, Swedish öga, and many others. And *augon in its turn goes back to an Indo-European oqw-, which supplied the word for ‘eye’ to all the other Indo-European languages except the Celtic ones, including Russian óko (now obsolete), Greek ophthalmós, and Latin oculus (with all its subsequent derivatives such as French oeuil, Italian occhio, and Spanish ojo).

Amongst its more surprising English relatives are atrocious, ferocious, inoculate, ullage, and window.
=> atrocious, ferocious, inoculate, ocular, ullage, window
eyot: eyot: see island
eyrie: eyrie: [16] Latin ager (source of English agriculture and related to English acre) meant ‘field’, or more broadly ‘piece of land’. In postclassical times this extended via ‘native land’ to ‘lair of a wild animal, particularly a bird of prey’, the meaning of its Old French descendant aire. The Old French form was taken back into medieval Latin as aeria, the immediate source of the English word.
=> acre, agriculture
geyser: geyser: see gust
grey: grey: [OE] Grey is an ancient colour term, traceable back all the way to a prehistoric Indo- European *ghrēghwos. From this was descended West and North Germanic *grǣwaz, which produced German grau, Dutch grauw, Swedish grå, and Danish graa as well as English grey. The distinction in spelling between British grey and American gray is a comparatively recent one. Dr Johnson in his Dictionary 1755 gave gray as the main form, and even into the early 20th century it was still quite common in Britain (The Times used it, for instance). Nor is grey by any means unknown in America.
greyhound: greyhound: [OE] Most greyhounds are not grey – and there is no etymological reason why they should be. For the element grey- in their name has no connection with the colour-term grey. It comes from an unrecorded Old English *grīeg ‘bitch’, a relative of Old Norse grøy ‘bitch’.
heyday: heyday: [16] Etymologically, the -day of heyday has no connection with the English noun day, although it has come to resemble it over the centuries. Nor is hey- related to hay. Originally the word was heyda, an exclamation roughly equivalent to modern English hurrah. Probably it was just an extension of hey, modelled partly on Low German heida ‘hurrah’. Its earliest noun use (first recorded in the 1590s) was in the sense ‘state of exultation’; the influence of the day-like second syllable did not make itself felt until the mid-18th century, when the modern sense ‘period of greatest success’ began to emerge.
hockey: hockey: [19] The first known unequivocal reference to the game of hockey comes in William Holloway’s General Dictionary of Provincialisms 1838, where he calls it hawkey, and describes it as ‘a game played by several boys on each side with sticks, called hawkeybats, and a ball’ (the term came from West Sussex). It is not known for certain where the word originated, but it is generally assumed to be related in some way to hook, with reference to the hockey stick’s curved end. The Galway Statutes of 1527 refer to the ‘hurling of the little ball with hockie sticks or staves’, which may mean ‘curved sticks’.
=> hook
honey: honey: [OE] Our Indo-European ancestors were very fond of honey, and their word for it, based on *melit-, has come down to many modern European languages, such as French and Spanish miel, Italian miele, and Welsh mel (it also contributed to English mellifluous, mildew, and molasses). The Germanic languages, however, have not persisted with it.

Their words for ‘honey’ (which also include German honig, Dutch honing, Swedish honung, and Danish honning) come from a prehistoric West and North Germanic *khunagom or *khunanggom. This may originally have described the colour of honey; it has been linked with Greek knēkós ‘pale yellow’ and Sanskrit kāncana- ‘golden’.
honeymoon: honeymoon: [16] The word honeymoon first appeared in print in the middle of the 16th century. Richard Huloet in his Abecedarium Anglico Latinum 1552 defined it as ‘a term proverbially applied to such as be new married, which will not fall out at the first, but the one loueth the other at the beginning exceedingly, the likelihood of their exceeding love appearing to assuage, the which time the vulgar people call the honey moon’. His description suggests not only that the term had already been around for some time by the 1550s, but also that it was probably inspired by the notion that although married love was at first as sweet as honey, it soon waned like the moon.
journey: journey: [13] Etymologically, a journey is a ‘day’s’ travel. The word comes via Old French jornee from Vulgar Latin *diurnāta. This in turn was derived from Latin diurnum ‘daily allowance or ration’, a noun use of the adjective diurnus ‘daily’, which was based on diēs ‘day’. The specific notion of a ‘day’s’ travel had died out by the mid-16th century, leaving only the more general ‘travel’.

But before going altogether, ‘day’ left its mark on another manifestation of the word journey: the word journeyman ‘qualified worker’ [15]. This has no connection with ‘travelling’; it originally denoted one who was qualified to do a ‘day’s’ work. Another Latin derivative of diurnus was the adjective diurnātis, which has given English diurnal [15], journal [14] (first cousin to diary), and journalism [19]. Sojourn belongs to the same language family.
=> diary, diurnal, journal, sojourn
key: key: [OE] The Old English ancestor of key was cǣg. This produced a modern English word which to begin with was pronounced to rhyme with bay, and its present-day pronunciation, rhyming with bee, did not come to the fore until the 18th century. No one knows where the word originally came from; it has no living relatives in other Germanic languages.
kidney: kidney: [14] The origins of kidney are a matter of guesswork rather than certain knowledge. Probably the most widely accepted theory is that the -ey element represents ey, the Middle English word for ‘egg’, in allusion to the shape of the kidneys. The first syllable is more problematical, but one possible source is Old English cwith ‘womb’ or the related Old Norse kvithr ‘belly, womb’, in which case kidney would mean etymologically ‘belly-egg’.
=> egg
lackey: lackey: [16] By a circuitous series of steps, lackey is of Arabic origin. English borrowed it from French laquais, which originally denoted a sort of foot-soldier, and hence a ‘footman’ or ‘servant’. French in turn got it from Catalan alacay, whose source was Arabic al-qādī ‘the judge’ (the Spanish version alcalde ‘magistrate’ was acquired by English in the 17th century).
lamprey: lamprey: [12] The words lamprey and limpet [OE] come from the same source: medieval Latin lamprēda. This was an alteration of an earlier, 5th-century lampetra, which has been plausibly explained as literally ‘stone-licker’ (from Latin lambēre ‘lick’, source of English lambent, and petra ‘stone’). The reason for applying such a name to the limpet is fairly obvious – it clings fast to rocks – but in fact the lamprey too holds on to rocks, with its jawless sucking mouth.
=> lambent, limpet, petrol
medley: medley: see mix
money: money: [13] An epithet used in ancient Rome for the goddess Juno was Monēta (derived by some etymologists in the past from the Latin verb monēre ‘advise, warn’, although this is now regarded as rather dubious). The name was also applied to her temple in Rome, which contained a mint. And so in due course monēta came to mean ‘mint’ (a sense retained in English mint, which goes back via a circuitous route to monēta), then ‘stamp for coining’, and finally ‘coin’ – the meaning transmitted via Old French moneie to English money.
=> mint
monkey: monkey: [16] No one is too sure where monkey came from. Spanish has mono ‘monkey’, and Old Italian had monno ‘monkey’, both probably borrowed from Arabic maimūn ‘monkey’, and it could be that an ancestor of these was borrowed into Low German and given the diminutive suffix -ke. This would account for monkey. No related Germanic form has been found to substantiate this, although the name Moneke does occur in Middle Low German.
obey: obey: [13] ‘To hear is to obey’ carries more than a germ of etymological truth. For obey comes via Old French obeir from Latin ōbēdīre, which meant literally ‘listen to’. It was a compound verb formed from the prefix ob- ‘to’ and audīre ‘hear’ (source of English audible). By classical times the metaphorical sense ‘obey’ had virtually taken over from the original ‘listen to’, and it is this sense that informs the related obedient [13] and obeisance [14].
=> audible, obedient
osprey: osprey: [15] Etymologically, the osprey is simply a ‘bird of prey’. Its name comes from ospreit, the Old French descendant of Vulgar Latin *avispreda, which in turn was a conflation of Latin avis praedae ‘bird of prey’ (avis is the source of English augur, auspice, aviary, and aviation, and praeda is the ancestor of English prey).

The specific association with the ‘osprey’ came about in Old French through confusion with the coincidentally similar osfraie ‘osprey’. This meant etymologically ‘bone-breaker’. It came from Latin ossifraga, a compound formed from os ‘bone’ (source of English ossify [18]) and frangere ‘break’ (source of English fracture, fragment, etc).

It was originally applied to the lammergeier, a large vulture, in allusion to its habit of dropping its prey from a great height on to rocks beneath in order to break its bones, but was subsequently also used for the osprey.
=> aviary, prey
palfrey: palfrey: [12] Etymologically, a palfrey is an ‘extra horse’. The word comes via Old French palefrei from medieval Latin palefrēdus, an alteration of an earlier paraverēdus (source of German pferd ‘horse’). This was a compound formed from Greek pará ‘extra’ (source of the English prefix para-) and late Latin verēdus ‘light fast horse used by couriers’, a word of Gaulish origin.
parsley: parsley: [14] The ultimate source of parsley is Greek petrōselínon, a compound formed from pétrā ‘rock’ (source of English petrify, petrol, etc) and sélīnon ‘parsley’ (source of English celery). From it was descended Latin petroselīnum, which in post-classical times became petrosilium. This passed into English in two distinct phases: first, direct from Latin in the Old English period as petersilie, and secondly, in the 13th century via Old French peresil as percil. By the 14th century these had started to merge together into percely, later parsley.
=> celery, petrol
prey: prey: [13] Prey comes via Old French preie from Latin praeda ‘booty’ (from which was derived the verb praedārī ‘plunder’, source of English depredation [15] and predatory [16]). This was a contraction of an earlier praeheda, a noun formed with the prefix prae- ‘before’ from the same base (*hed- ‘seize’, source also of English get) as produced the verb praehendere ‘seize’.

This has been a rich source of English vocabulary, contributing through different channels such a varied assortment as prehensile [18], prison, and prize ‘something seized in war’, not to mention prefixed forms like apprehend. comprehend [14], comprise [15], impregnable [15], reprehensible, reprieve, and surprise. It is also the ancestor of French prendre ‘take’.
=> apprehend, comprehend, comprise, depredation, impregnable, predatory, prehensile, prison, reprehensible, reprieve, surprise
pulley: pulley: [14] Although pulleys are used for ‘pulling’, there is no etymological connection between the two words. Pulley comes via Old French polie from Vulgar Latin *polidia, which was probably borrowed from the plural of a medieval Greek *polidion, a diminutive form of Greek pólos ‘pole, pivot’ (source of English pole ‘extremity’).
=> pole
purvey: purvey: see provide
storey: storey: [14] Storey is etymologically the same word as story. Both come ultimately from Latin historia ‘story’ (source also of English history). Storey itself was borrowed directly from Anglo- Latin historia, which is known to have been used for ‘picture’, and may also have denoted a ‘row of pictures in the form of stained glass windows or statues, telling a story’, which filled the entire wall between floor and ceiling at a given level of a building.
=> history, story
survey: survey: [15] To survey something is etymologically to ‘oversee’ it. The word comes via Anglo-Norman surveier from medieval Latin supervidēre, a compound verb formed from the prefix super- ‘over’ and vidēre ‘see’ (source of English view, vision, etc).
=> view, vision
they: they: [12] Like their and them, they was borrowed from Old Norse. Its source was their, the plural form of the demonstrative adjective sá, and it replaced the native Old English pronoun hīe.
=> their, them
turkey: turkey: [16] The term turkey was originally applied to the ‘guinea-fowl’, apparently because the bird was imported into Europe from Africa by the Portuguese through Turkish territory. When the American bird we now know as the turkey was introduced to the British in the mid 16th century, it seems to have reminded them of the guinea fowl, for they transferred the guinea fowl’s name turkey to it.
valley: valley: [13] Valley comes via Anglo-Norman valey from *vallāta, a Vulgar Latin derivative of Latin vallis ‘valley’, whose origins are uncertain. A more direct English descendant of vallis is vale [13].
=> vale
volley: volley: [16] A volley is etymologically a ‘flight’ of something, such as missiles. The word comes via Old French volee from Vulgar Latin *volāta ‘flight’, which was a noun use of the feminine past participle of Latin volāre ‘fly’ (source also of English volatile [17]). The origins of this are not certain, although it may be distantly related to Sanskrit garutmant- ‘bird’. The use of volley as a sporting term for a ‘shot hit before the ball bounces’ dates from the 19th century.
=> volatile
abbey (n.): mid-13c., "convent headed by an abbot or abbess," from Anglo-French abbeie, Old French abaïe, from Late Latin abbatia, from abbas (genitive abbatis); see abbot.
abeyance (n.): 1520s, from Anglo-French abeiance "suspension," also "expectation (especially in a lawsuit)," from Old French abeance "aspiration, desire," noun of condition of abeer "aspire after, gape" from à "at" (see ad-) + ba(y)er "be open," from Latin *batare "to yawn, gape" (see abash).

Originally in French a legal term, "condition of a person in expectation or hope of receiving property;" it turned around in English law to mean "condition of property temporarily without an owner" (1650s). Root baer is also the source of English bay (n.2) "recessed space," as in "bay window."
alley (n.): mid-14c., "passage in a house; open passage between buildings; walkway in a garden," from Old French alee (13c., Modern French allée) "a path, passage, way, corridor," also "a going," from fem. of ale, past participle of aler "to go," which ultimately may be a contraction of Latin ambulare "to walk," or from Gallo-Roman allari, a back-formation from Latin allatus "having been brought to" [Barnhart]. Compare sense evolution of gate. Applied by c. 1500 to "long narrow enclosure for playing at bowls, skittles, etc." Used in place names from c. 1500.

The word is applied in American English to what in London is called a mews, and also is used there especially of a back-lane parallel to a main street (1729). To be up someone's alley "in someone's neighborhood" (literally or figuratively) is from 1931; alley-cat attested by 1890.
alley-way (n.): 1788, from alley + way (n.).
Ashley: fem. proper name, all but unknown before c. 1965; one of the most popular names for girls born in U.S. from c. 1980; evidently inspired by the surname Ashley, Ashleigh (attested from 12c.), which means "clearing among the ash trees," from Old English æsc + leah (see ash (n.2) + lea).
attorney (n.): early 14c. (mid-13c. in Anglo-Latin), from Old French atorné "(one) appointed," past participle of aturner "to decree, assign, appoint," from atorner (see attorn). The legal Latin form attornare influenced the spelling in Anglo-French. The sense is of "one appointed to represent another's interests."

In English law, a private attorney was one appointed to act for another in business or legal affairs (usually for pay); an attorney at law or public attorney was a qualified legal agent in the courts of Common Law who prepared the cases for a barrister, who pleaded them (the equivalent of a solicitor in Chancery). So much a term of contempt in England that it was abolished by the Judicature Act of 1873 and merged with solicitor.
Johnson observed that "he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney." [Boswell]
The double -t- is a mistaken 15c. attempt to restore a non-existent Latin original. Attorney general first recorded 1530s in sense of "legal officer of the state" (late 13c. in Anglo-French), from French, hence the odd plural (subject first, adjective second).
Aubrey: masc. personal name, from Old French Auberi, from Old High German Alberich "ruler of elves," or *Alb(e)rada "elf-counsel" (fem.). In U.S., it began to be used as a girl's name c. 1973 and was among the top 100 given names for girls born 2006-2008, eclipsing its use for boys, which faded in proportion.