英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

anther [anther 词源字典]: anther: [18] Greek ánthos originally meant ‘part of a plant which grows above ground’ (this was the basis of the Homeric ‘metaphor’ translated as ‘flower of youth’, which originally referred to the first growth of beard on young men’s faces). Later it narrowed somewhat to ‘flower’. The adjective derived from it was anthērós, which was borrowed into Latin as anthēra, a noun meaning ‘medicine made from flowers’.

In practice, herbalists often made such medicines from the reproductive part of the flower, and so anther came to be applied to the pollen-bearing part of the stamen. More remote semantically, but also derived from Greek ánthos, is anthology [17]. The second element represents Greek logíā ‘collecting’, a derivative of the verb legein ‘gather’ (which is related to legend and logic).

The notion of a collection of flowers, anthologíā, was applied metaphorically to a selection of choice epigrams or brief poems: borrowed into English, via French anthologie or medieval Latin anthologia, it was originally restricted to collections of Greek verse, but by the mid 19th century its application had broadened out considerably. The parallel Latin formation, florilegium, also literally ‘collection of flowers’, has occasionally been used in English for ‘anthology’.
=> anthology[anther etymology, anther origin, 英语词源]
chock-full: chock-full: [14] There is more than one theory to account for this word. It occurs in a couple of isolated instances around 1400, as chokkefulle and chekeful, prompting speculation that the first element may be either chock ‘wooden block’, which came from an assumed Old Northern French *choque (thus ‘stuffed full with lumps of wood’) or cheek (thus ‘full up as far as the cheeks’). It resurfaces in the 17th century as choke-ful, which has given rise to the idea that it may originally have meant ‘so full as to choke’. The available evidence seems too scanty to come to a firm conclusion.
dot: dot: [OE] The underlying meaning of dot seems to be ‘small lump or raised mark’. In Old English (in which there is only a single record of its use) it meant ‘head of a boil’, and it could well be related to English tit ‘nipple’. The word disappears from written texts between the 11th and the 16th centuries, and resurfaces in the sense ‘small lump’. The modern meaning ‘small roundish mark’ does not appear until the 17th century. Dottle ‘unburnt tobacco in the bottom of a pipe’ [15] is a diminutive form of dot.
=> dottle, tit
January: January: [14] The ancient Romans had a god named Janus whose head had two faces, looking in opposite directions. He was the tutelary deity of doorways, and his festival month was at the beginning of the year, when he could look both backwards at the old year and forwards to the new one. This month was therefore called Jānuārius mensis ‘month of Janus’ – whence English January.
lithograph: lithograph: [19] Greek líthos meant ‘stone’. It has contributed a small cluster of words to English, including lithium [19] (a metal so named from its mineral origin), lithops [20] (the name of a small pebble-like plant, coined in the 1920s, which means literally ‘stoneface’ in Greek), lithosphere [19] (the solid outer layer of the Earth), lithotomy [18] (the surgical removal of stones from the bladder), megalith [19], monolith [19], and the various terms for subdivisions of the Stone Age, such as Neolithic [19] and Paleolithic [19]. Lithography itself, which denotes a method of printing from a flat surface, means etymologically ‘stone-writing’, reflecting the fact that the original printing surfaces in this process were of stone (they are now usually metal).
morgue: morgue: [19] The original Morgue was a Parisian mortuary where unidentified corpses were displayed for visitors to try and put names to faces (a process described in gruesome detail by Émile Zola in Thérèse Raquin 1867). Its name is presumed to be a reapplication of an earlier French morgue ‘room in a prison where new prisoners were examined’, which may ultimately be the same word as morgue ‘haughty superiority’ (used in English from the 16th to the 19th centuries). Morgue was first adopted as a generic English term for ‘mortuary’ in the USA in the 1880s.
north: north: [OE] North is a general West and North Germanic word for ‘north’, represented also in German, Swedish, and Danish nord and Dutch noorden. It was also borrowed into French (from Old English) as nord, from where it spread into Italian and Romanian as nord and into Spanish as norte. It is not known for certain where it came from, but a link has been suggested with nertro-, a word for ‘left’ in the extinct Oscan- Umbrian languages of Italy, which might mean that the underlying meaning of north is ‘to the left as one faces the rising sun’ (modern Irish tuaisceart ‘north’ was based on a word meaning ‘left’).
side: side: [OE] The etymological meaning of side appears to be the ‘long’ surface of something (as opposed to the ends or the top or bottom, which are the ‘shorter’ or ‘narrower’ surfaces). The word goes back, together with German seite, Dutch zijde, Swedish sida, and Danish side, to a prehistoric Germanic *sīthō, which was probably derived from the adjective *sīthaz ‘long, deep, low’ (source of Swedish sid ‘long’).
silly: silly: [OE] In one of the more celebrated semantic volte-faces in the history of the English lexicon, silly has been transformed over the past millennium from ‘blessed, happy’ to ‘stupid’. The word goes back ultimately to a prehistoric West Germanic *sǣliga, a derivative of *sǣli ‘luck, happiness’. It reached Old English as gesǣlig, still meaning ‘happy’, but as it evolved formally in Middle English through seely to silly, its meaning developed via ‘blessed’, ‘pious’, ‘innocent, harmless’, ‘pitiable’, and ‘feeble’ to ‘feeble in mind, foolish’. The related German selig retains its original meaning ‘happy, blessed’.
tadpole: tadpole: [15] A tadpole is etymologically a ‘toad-head’. The word was coined from Middle English tadde ‘toad’ and pol ‘head’ (ancestor of modern English poll ‘voting’, historically a counting of ‘heads’). Tadpoles, with their moonlike faces appearing to take up about half of their small globular bodies, seem rather like animated heads.
=> poll, toad
adsorb (v.): 1882, transitive (intransitive use attested from 1919), back-formation from adsorption "condensation of gases on the surfaces of solids" (1882), coined in German from ad- + -sorption, abstracted from absorption. See absorb. Related: Adsorbent; adsorption.
aeroplane (n.): 1866, from French aéroplane (1855), from Greek aero- "air" (see air (n.1)) + stem of French planer "to soar," from Latin planus "level, flat" (see plane (n.1)). Originally in reference to surfaces (such as the protective shell casings of beetles' wings); meaning "heavier than air flying machine" first attested 1873, probably an independent English coinage (see airplane).
Americanism (n.): 1781, in reference to words or phrases distinct from British use, coined by John Witherspoon (1723-1794), president of Princeton College, from American + -ism. (American English "English language as spoken in the United States" is first recorded 1806, in Webster.) Americanism in the patriotic sense "attachment to the U.S." is attested from 1797, first found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson.
I have been not a little disappointed, and made suspicious of my own judgment, on seeing the Edinburgh Reviews, the ablest critics of the age, set their faces against the introduction of new words into the English language; they are particularly apprehensive that the writers of the United States will adulterate it. Certainly so great growing a population, spread over such an extent of country, with such a variety of climates, of productions, of arts, must enlarge their language, to make it answer its purpose of expressing all ideas, the new as well as the old. [Jefferson to John Waldo, Aug. 16, 1813]
bitchy (adj.): 1925, U.S. slang, "sexually provocative;" later (1930s) "spiteful, catty, bad-tempered" (usually of females); from bitch + -y (2). Earlier in reference to male dogs though to look less rough or coarse than usual.
Mr. Ramsay says we would now call the old dogs "bitchy" in face. That is because the Englishmen have gone in for the wrong sort of forefaces in their dogs, beginning with the days when Meersbrook Bristles and his type swept the judges off their feet and whiskers and an exaggerated face were called for in other varieties of terriers besides the wire haired fox. [James Watson, "The Dog Book," New York, 1906]
Related: Bitchily; bitchiness.
burst (v.): Old English berstan (intransitive) "break suddenly, shatter under pressure" (class III strong verb; past tense bærst, past participle borsten), from a West Germanic metathesis of Proto-Germanic *brest- (cognates: Old Saxon brestan, Old Frisian bersta, Middle Dutch berstan, Low German barsten, Dutch barsten, Old High German brestan, German bersten "to burst"), from PIE root *bhres- "to burst, break, crack."

The forms reverted to brest- in Middle English from influence of Old Norse brestan/brast/brosten, from the same Germanic root, but it was re-metathesized late 16c. and emerged in the modern form, though brast was common as past tense through 17c. and survives in dialect.

Of extended or distended surfaces from 1530s. Figuratively, in reference to being over-full of excitement, anticipation, etc., from 1630s. Transitive sense ("to cause to break") is from late 13c. Meaning "to issue suddenly and abundantly" is from c. 1300 (literal), mid-13c. (figurative). Meaning "break into sudden activity or expression" is from 1680s. Related: Bursting.
casuist (n.): c. 1600, "one who studies and resolves cases of conscience," from French casuiste (17c.) or Spanish casuista (the French word also might be from Spanish), Italian casista, all from Latin casus (see case (n.1)) in its Medieval Latin sense "case of conscience." Often since 17c. in a sinister or contemptuous sense. Related: Casuistic; casuistical; casuistically; casuistry.
Casuistry ... destroys, by distinctions and exceptions, all morality, and effaces the essential difference between right and wrong. [Bolingbroke, 1736]
cold war (n.): used in print October 1945 by George Orwell; popularized in U.S. c. 1947 by Bernard Baruch.
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. [Woody Allen, "My Speech to the Graduates," 1979]
distingue (adj.): "having an air of distinction," 1813 (in Byron), from French distingué, literally "distinguished," past participle of distinguer (see distinguish). The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces
With distingué traces
That used to be there -- You could see where they'd been washed away
By too many through the day
Twelve o'clock tales.

["Lush Life," Billy Strayhorn, age 17]
doughface (n.): contemptuous nickname in U.S. politics for Northern Democrats who worked in the interest of the South before the Civil War; it was taken to mean "man who allows himself to be moulded." The source is an 1820 speech by John Randolph of Roanoke, in the wake of the Missouri Compromise.
Randolph, mocking the northerners intimidated by the South, referred to a children's game in which the players daubed their faces with dough and then looked in a mirror and scared themselves. [Daniel Walker Howe, "What Hath God Wrought," 2007]
Mask of dough is recorded from 1809, and the same image Randolph used is attested in another context by 1833. In contemporary use the expression was explained as referring to "the pale doughy faces of his frightened opponents" [Craigie] or "to liken them in timidity to female deer," which is frightened at her own shadow.
face (n.): c. 1300, "the human face, a face; facial appearance or expression; likeness, image," from Old French face "face, countenance, look, appearance" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *facia (source also of Italian faccia), from Latin facies "appearance, form, figure," and secondarily "visage, countenance," which probably is literally "form imposed on something" and related to facere "to make" (see factitious).

Replaced Old English andwlita "face, countenance" (from root of wlitan "to see, look") and ansyn, ansien, the usual word (from the root of seon "see"). Words for "face" in Indo-European commonly are based on the notion of "appearance, look," and are mostly derivatives from verbs for "to see, look" (as with the Old English words, Greek prosopon, literally "toward-look," Lithuanian veidas, from root *weid- "to see," etc.). But in some cases, as here, the word for "face" means "form, shape." In French, the use of face for "front of the head" was given up 17c. and replaced by visage (older vis), from Latin visus "sight."

From late 14c. as "outward appearance (as contrasted to some other reality);" also from late 14c. as "forward part or front of anything;" also "surface (of the earth or sea), extent (of a city)." Typographical sense of "part of the type which forms the letter" is from 1680s.
Whan she cometh hoom, she raumpeth in my face And crieth 'false coward.' [Chaucer, "Monk's Tale"]
Face to face is from mid-14c. Face time is attested from 1990. To lose face (1876), is said to be from Chinese tu lien; hence also save face (1915). To show (one's) face "make or put in an appearance" is from mid-14c. (shewen the face). To make a face "change the appearance of the face in disgust, mockery, etc." is from 1560s. Two faces under one hood as a figure of duplicity is attested from mid-15c.
Two fases in a hode is neuer to tryst. ["Awake lordes," 1460]
frontier (n.): c. 1400, frowntere, "front line of an army;" early 15c., fronture, "borderland, part of a country which faces another," from Old French frontiere "boundary-line of a country," also "frontier fortress; front rank of an army" (13c.), noun use of adjective frontier "facing, neighboring," from front "brow" (see front (n.)). In reference to North America, "part of the country which is at the edge of its settled regions" from 1670s. Later it was given a specific sense:
What is the frontier? ... In the census reports it is treated as the margin of that settlement which has a density of two or more to the square mile. [F.J. Turner, "The Frontier in American History," 1920]
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]
grindstone (n.): early 13c. "millstone," from grind (v.) in sense of "sharpen" + stone (n.); meaning "revolving stone disc used for sharpening, etc." is from c. 1400. Phrase nose to the grindstone in use by 1530s; originally to get control of another and treat him harshly:
This Text holdeth their noses so hard to the grindstone, that it clean disfigureth their Faces. [John Frith, "Mirror to know Thyself," 1532]
The phrase's main modern (reflexive) sense of "working hard" is from 1828.
harpy (n.): winged monster of ancient mythology, late 14c., from Old French harpie (14c.), from Latin harpyia, from Greek Harpyia (plural), literally "snatchers," which is probably related to harpazein "to snatch" (see rapid (adj.)). Metaphoric extension to "repulsively greedy person" is c. 1400.
In Homer they are merely personified storm winds, who were believed to have carried off any person that had suddenly disappeared. In Hesiod they are fair-haired and winged maidens who surpass the winds in swiftness, and are called Aello and Ocypete; but in later writers they are represented as disgusting monsters, with heads like maidens, faces pale with hunger, and claws like those of birds. The harpies ministered to the gods as the executors of vengeance. ["American Cyclopædia," 1874]
Hobbit (n.): 1937, coined in the fantasy tales of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973).
On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' I did not and do not know why. [Tolkien, letter to W.H. Auden, dated 1955]
The word also turns up in a very long list of folkloric supernatural creatures in the writings of Michael Aislabie Denham (d.1859), printed in volume 2 of "The Denham Tracts" [ed. James Hardy, London: Folklore Society, 1895], a compilation of Denham's scattered publications. Denham was an early folklorist who concentrated on Northumberland, Durham, Westmoreland, Cumberland, the Isle of Man, and Scotland.
What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, specters, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks necks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins Gyre-carling, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost. Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!
[Emphasis added] It is curious that the name occurs nowhere else in folklore, and there is no evidence that Tolkien ever saw this. The word also was recorded from 1835 as "a term generally used in Wales to express a quantity made up of four Welsh pecks." Hobbitry attested from 1947.
jam (n.2): "a tight pressing between two surfaces," 1806, from jam (v.). Jazz meaning "short, free improvised passage performed by the whole band" dates from 1929, and yielded jam session (1933); but this is perhaps from jam (n.1) in sense of "something sweet, something excellent." Sense of "machine blockage" is from 1890, which probably led to the colloquial meaning "predicament, tight spot," first recorded 1914.
Janus: ancient Italic deity, guardian god of portals, doors, and gates; patron of beginnings and endings, c. 1500, from Latin Ianus, literally "gate, arched passageway," perhaps from PIE root *ei- (1) "to go" (cognates: Sanskrit yanah "path," Old Church Slavonic jado "to travel"). He is shown as having two faces, one in front the other in back. His temple in Rome was closed only in times of peace.
letter (n.1): c. 1200, "graphic symbol, alphabetic sign, written character," from Old French letre (10c., Modern French lettre) "character, letter; missive, note," in plural, "literature, writing, learning," from Latin littera (also litera) "letter of the alphabet," of uncertain origin, perhaps via Etruscan from Greek diphthera "tablet," with change of d- to l- as in lachrymose. In this sense it replaced Old English bocstæf, literally "book staff" (compare German Buchstabe "letter, character," from Old High German buohstab, from Proto-Germanic *bok-staba-m).

Latin littera also meant "a writing, document, record," and in plural litteræ "a letter, epistle," a sense first attested in English early 13c., replacing Old English ærendgewrit, literally "errand-writing." The Latin plural also meant "literature, books," and figuratively "learning, liberal education, schooling" (see letters). School letter in sports, attested by 1908, were said to have been first awarded by University of Chicago football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg. Expression to the letter "precisely" is from 1520s (earlier as after the letter). Letter-perfect is from 1845, originally in theater jargon, in reference to an actor knowing the lines exactly. Letter-press, in reference to matter printed from relief surfaces, is from 1840.
lighten (v.2): "shed light upon, illuminate, brighten," early 14c., from light (n.) -en (1). Meaning "to grow brighter" is late 14c. Of faces, expressions, etc., from 1795. Related: Lightened; lightening.
lithography (n.): 1813, from German Lithographie (c. 1804), coined from Greek lithos "stone" (see litho-) + graphein "to write" (see -graphy). The original printing surfaces were of stone. Process invented 1796 by Alois Senefelder of Munich (1771-1833). Hence, lithograph "a lithographic print," a back-formation first attested 1828. Earlier senses, now obsolete, were "description of stones or rocks" (1708) and "art of engraving on precious stones" (1730).
mask (v.): 1560s, "take part in a masquerade;" 1570s, "to disguise;" 1580s, "to wear a mask," from mask (n.). Figurative use by 1580s. Extended sense of "to disguise" is attested from 1847. Related: Masked; masking. Masking tape recorded from 1927; so called because it is used to block out certain surfaces before painting.
meniscus (n.): "crescent-shaped body," 1690s in reference to lenses, c. 1812 in reference to liquid surfaces, Modern Latin meniscus, from Greek meniskos "lunar crescent," diminutive of mene "moon" (see moon (n.)). Related: Meniscoid.
mug (n.2): "a person's face," 1708, possibly from mug (n.1), on notion of drinking mugs shaped like grotesque faces. Sense of "portrait or photograph in police records (as in mug shot, 1950) had emerged by 1887. Hence, also, "a person" (especially "a criminal"), 1890.
mugging (n.): "violent physical attack," 1846, verbal noun from mug (v.1). As "grimmacing, making faces," 1937, from mug (v.2).
north: Old English norð "northern" (adj.), "northwards" (adv.), from Proto-Germanic *nurtha- (cognates: Old Norse norðr, Old Saxon north, Old Frisian north, Middle Dutch nort, Dutch noord, German nord), possibly ultimately from PIE *ner- (1) "left," also "below," as north is to the left when one faces the rising sun (cognates: Sanskrit narakah "hell," Greek enerthen "from beneath," Oscan-Umbrian nertrak "left"). The same notion underlies Old Irish tuath "left; northern;" Arabic shamal "left hand; north." The usual word for "north" in the Romance languages ultimately is from English, for example Old French north (Modern French nord), borrowed from Old English norð; Italian, Spanish norte are borrowed from French.
Ask where's the North? At York 'tis on the Tweed;
In Scotland at the Orcades; and there
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.
[Pope, "Essay on Man"]
As a noun, c. 1200, from the adverb. North Pole attested from mid-15c. (earlier the Arctic pole, late 14c.). North American (n.) first used 1766, by Franklin; as an adjective, from 1770.
painter (n.1): "artist who paints pictures," early 14c., from Old French peintor, from Latin pictor "a painter," from pingere (see paint (v.)). Sense of "workman who colors surfaces with paint" is from c. 1400. As a surname, Painter is attested from mid-13c. but it is difficult to say which sense is meant. Related: Painterly.
plane (n.3): "tool for smoothing surfaces," mid-14c., from Old French plane, earlier plaine (14c.), from Late Latin plana, back-formation from planare "make level," from Latin planus "level, flat" (see plane (n.1)).
pointing (n.): "the filling up of exterior faces of joints in brickwork," late 15c., verbal noun from point (v.). Meaning "action of indicating with the finger, etc." is from 1550s.
rappel (n.): 1931, "mountaineering technique for descending steep faces," from French rappel, literally "recall" (Old French rapel), from rapeler "to recall, summon" (see repeal (v.)). The same word had been borrowed earlier (1848) to mean "a drum roll to summon soldiers."
reflect (v.): late 14c., "turn or bend back;" early 15c., "to divert, to turn aside, deflect," from Old French reflecter (14c.), from Latin reflectere "bend back, turn back" (see reflection). Of mirrors or polished surfaces, to shine back light rays or images, early 15c.; meaning "to turn one's thoughts back on" is c. 1600. Related: Reflected; reflecting.
reflection (n.): late 14c., reflexion, in reference to surfaces throwing back light or heat, from Late Latin reflexionem (nominative reflexio) "a reflection," literally "a bending back," noun of action from past participle stem of Latin reflectere "to bend back, bend backwards, turn away," from re- "back" (see re-) + flectere "to bend" (see flexible). Of the mind, from 1670s. Meaning "remark made after turning back one's thought on some subject" is from 1640s. Spelling with -ct- recorded from late 14c., established 18c., by influence of the verb.
rude (adj.): late 13c., "coarse, rough" (of surfaces), from Old French ruide (13c.) or directly from Latin rudis "rough, crude, unlearned," perhaps related to rudus "rubble." Sense of "ill-mannered, uncultured; uneducated, uncultured" is from mid-14c. Rude boy (also rudie, for short) in Jamaican slang is attested from 1967. Figurative phrase rude awakening is attested from 1895.
seersucker (n.): 1722, from Hindi sirsakar, East Indian corruption of Persian shir o shakkar "striped cloth," literally "milk and sugar," a reference to the alternately smooth and puckered surfaces of the stripes. From Persian shir (cognate with Sanskrit ksiram "milk") + shakar (cognate with Pali sakkhara, Sanskrit sarkara "gravel, grit, sugar;" see sugar (n.)).
snake oil (n.): 1927 as "phony remedy," American English, from the use of oil derived from the fat of snakes (especially the rattlesnake) as a folk remedy in the rural regions of the U.S. Snake oil in this sense is attested by 1858. It was a folk remedy for rheumatism and gout in Georgia, but a cure for deafness in rural Pennsylvania. Professional pharmacy journals began to condemn it early 20c., not because it was quackery but because products sold under the name had no real snake oil in them.
What is known as snake oil is usually a combination which is handed out by the dealer to satisfy the demand of some credulous customer. A genuine oil of course is that which is obtained by "trying out" the fat of a snake, usually the rattlesnake, and to preserve their faces druggists sometimes employ a small proportion of such oil in preparing the weird mixtures dispensed by them. ["The Practical Druggist," July 1912]
soffit (n.): architectural term referring to under-faces, 1610s, from Italian soffita, fem. of soffitto "ceiling," noun use of adjective meaning "fixed beneath," from Vulgar Latin *suffictus "fastened below," from Latin suffixus (see suffix (n.)).
spar (n.2): "crystalline mineral that breaks easily into fragments with smooth surfaces," 1580s, from Low German Spar, from Middle Low German *spar, *sper, cognate with Old English spær- in spærstan "gypsum."
sponge (n.): Old English sponge, spunge, from Latin spongia "a sponge," also "sea animal from which a sponge comes," from Greek spongia, related to spongos "sponge," of unknown origin. "Probably a loanword from a non-IE language, borrowed independently into Greek, Latin and Armenian in a form *sphong-" [de Vaan]. The Latin word is the source of Old Saxon spunsia, Middle Dutch spongie, Old French esponge, Spanish esponja, Italian spugna.

In English in reference to the marine animal from 1530s. To throw in the sponge "quit, submit" (1860) is from prizefighting, in reference to the sponges used to cleanse the faces of combatants between rounds (compare later throw in the towel). Sponge-cake is attested from 1808.
squinch (v.): 1840 (transitive), of faces; intransitive use from 1843. Perhaps related to squinch "narrow opening in a building" (c. 1600). Also compare squink-eyed (1630s), variant of squint-eyed, so perhaps it is at least partly an altered form of squint. Related: Squinched; squinching.
subside (v.): 1680s, of objects, "to sink to the bottom," from Latin subsidere "sit down, settle, sink, fall; remain; crouch down, squat," from sub "down" (see sub-) + sidere "to settle," related to sedere "to sit" (see sedentary). Of liquid surfaces, "to sink to a lower level, be reduced" from 1706. Related: Subsided; subsiding.
tachymeter (n.): surveying instrument, 1836, from tachy- "swift" + -meter. Related: Tachymetry.
M. GAETANO CAÏRO has invented an instrument, to which he has given the name of Tachymeter (rapid measurer). Its object is to give the area of plane surfaces bounded by any outline whatever, without the necessity of any arithmetical operation. ["Magazine of Popular Science and Journal of the Useful Arts," Volume 2, 1836]