英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

banjo: banjo: [18] The origins of banjo are uncertain, but its likeliest source seems to be bandore, the name of a 16th-century stringed instrument similar to the lute. It has been argued that in the speech of Southern US blacks, amongst whom the banjo originated, bandore became banjo, perhaps under the influence of mbanza, a term for a similar instrument in the Kimbundu language of Northern Angola (although it might be more plausible to suggest that mbanza is the immediate source, altered by English-speakers more familiar with bandore). Bandore itself appears to be a variant of pandore or pandora, which comes from Greek pandoura ‘three-stringed lute’.

A more farreaching modification produced mandore, likewise a term for a lutelike instrument. The Italian version of the word, mandola, is familiar in English from its diminutive form, which has given us mandolin [18].
=> mandolin
beam: beam: [OE] In Old English times the word bēam (like modern German baum) meant ‘tree’ – a signification preserved in tree-names such as hornbeam and whitebeam. But already before the year 1000 the extended meanings we are familiar with today – ‘piece of timber’ and ‘ray of light’ – had started to develop. Related forms in other Germanic languages (which include, as well as German baum, Dutch boom, from which English gets boom ‘spar’ [16]) suggest a West Germanic ancestor *bauma, but beyond that all is obscure.
=> boom
before: before: [OE] Before is a Germanic compound, made up of *bi- ‘by’ and *forana ‘from the front’ (the resulting *biforana entered Old English as beforan). The second element, *forana, is a derivative of *fora, source of English for; this originally meant ‘before’, and only gradually developed the senses we are familiar with today.
=> for
farce: farce: [14] Farce originally meant ‘stuff’ (widening gastronomic knowledge in the late 20th century has made us more familiar with its French cousin farcir ‘stuff’, and the force- of forcemeat [17] is the same word). It came via Old French farsir from Latin farcīre ‘stuff’. The Latin verb was used in the Middle Ages for the notion of inserting additional passages into the text of the Mass, and hence to padding out any text. A particular application was the insertion of impromptu, usually comical interludes into religious plays, which had led by the 16th century to something approaching the modern meaning of farce.
=> forcemeat
hidebound: hidebound: [16] The term hidebound was originally applied to cattle so emaciated that their skin (or hide) was dry and stiff and clung closely to their bones. The idea of being trapped immovably inside one’s skin had led by the early 17th century to the meaning we are most familiar with today: ‘set immovably in one’s opinions, narrow-minded’.
kangaroo: kangaroo: [18] The first English speakers to refer in writing to the kangaroo were Captain Cook and the botanist Joseph Banks, who both mentioned it in 1770 in the journals they kept of their visit to Australia (Banks, for instance, referred to killing ‘kangaru’). This was their interpretation of ganjurru, the name for a large black or grey type of kangaroo in the Guugu Yimidhirr language of New South Wales.

English quickly generalized the term to any sort of kangaroo, although it caused some confusion among speakers of other Australian Aboriginal languages, who were not familiar with it: speakers of the Baagandji language, for instance, used it to refer to the horse (which had just been introduced into Australia). There is no truth whatsoever in the story that the Aboriginal word was a reply to the English question ‘What’s that?’, and meant ‘I don’t understand’.

The element -roo was used in the 19th century to produce jackeroo, which denoted ‘a new immigrant in Australia’, and is first recorded as an independent abbreviation of kangaroo in the first decade of the 20th century. The term kangaroo court ‘unofficial court’, which dates from the 1850s, is an allusion to the court’s irregular proceedings, which supposedly resemble the jumps of a kangaroo.
sneeze: sneeze: [15] The Old English word for ‘sneeze’ was fnēsan, a distant relative of Greek pneuma ‘breath’ (source of English pneumatic). This survived into Middle English as fnese. The letters f and s were very similar in medieval script, so it could have played a part in the late 15th-century emergence of sneeze. Fnese had largely died out by the early 15th century, and it could well be that when printing got into full swing in the 1490s, with many old manuscript texts being reissued in printed form, printers unfamiliar with the old word fnese assumed it had the much more common initial consonant cluster sn-.

Another factor in the equation is the now obsolete verb neeze ‘sneeze’. This was borrowed in the 14th century from Old Norse hnósja, a descendant of the Indo-European base *ksneu-, which also produced German niesen, Dutch niezen, Swedish nysa, Danish nyse, and Russian chikhat’ ‘sneeze’. It bridged the gap between fnese and sneeze, and the new sneeze no doubt struck people as a more expressive alternative to the old neeze. (Both fnese and neeze go back ultimately to an imitation of the sound of breathing, blowing, or sneezing.)
=> pneumatic
haunt (v.): early 13c., "to practice habitually, busy oneself with, take part in," from Old French hanter "to frequent, resort to, be familiar with" (12c.), probably from Old Norse heimta "bring home," from Proto-Germanic *haimatjanan "to go or bring home," from *haimaz- "home" (see home (n.)). Meaning "to frequent (a place)" is c. 1300 in English. Use in reference to a spirit returning to the house where it had lived perhaps was in Proto-Germanic, but it was reinforced by Shakespeare's plays, and it is first recorded 1590 in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
indri (n.): 1839, European name for the babakoto, a lemur-like arboreal primate of Madagascar (Indris Lichanotus); the common story since late 19c. is that the name was given in error by French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat (1748-1814), c. 1780, from mistaken use of Malagasy indry! "look! See!" Evidently this was what his native guides said when they spotted the creature and called his attention to it.
However, as Hacking (1981) pointed out, Sonnerat was far too familiar with indris -- he described and figured them in detail, and apparently kept at least one in captivity -- for this story to be plausible. Furthermore, endrina is actually recorded as a native name for the indri (Cousins, 1885), and indri could easily be a variant of this name. Although the word endrina is first recorded in Malagasy only in 1835, there is no evidence that it could be a back-formation from the French indri (Hacking, 1981), and it seems implausible that the Malagasy would adopt an erroneous French name for an animal they were them selves familiar with. [Dunkel, Alexander R., et al., "Giant rabbits, marmosets, and British comedies: etymology of lemur names, part 1," in "Lemur News," vol. 16, 2011-2012, p.67]
Sagittarius (n.): zodiac constellation, late Old English, from Latin, literally "archer," properly "pertaining to arrows," from sagitta "arrow," which probably is from a pre-Latin Mediterranean language. Meaning "person born under Sagittarius" (properly Sagittarian) is attested from 1940. It represents a centaur drawing a bow, but to modern observers unfamiliar with either it looks vaguely like a teapot.
shark (n.): 1560s, of uncertain origin; apparently the word and the first specimen were brought to London by Capt. John Hawkins's second expedition (landed 1565; see Hakluyt).
There is no proper name for it that I knowe, but that sertayne men of Captayne Haukinses doth call it a 'sharke' [handbill advertising an exhibition of the specimen, 1569]
The meaning "dishonest person who preys on others," though attested only from 1599 (sharker "artful swindler" in this sense is from 1594), may be the original sense, later transferred to the large, voracious marine fish. If so, it is possibly from German Schorck, a variant of Schurke "scoundrel, villain," agent noun of Middle High German schürgen (German schüren) "to poke, stir."

But on another theory, the English word is from a Mayan word, xoc, which might have meant "shark." Northern Europeans seem not to have been familiar with sharks before voyages to the tropics began. A slightly earlier name for it in English was tiburon, via Spanish (where it is attested by 1520s), from the Carib name for the fish.

The English word was applied (or re-applied) to voracious or predatory persons, on the image of the fish, from 1707 (originally of pick-pockets); loan shark is attested from 1905. Sharkskin (1851) was used for binding books, etc. As the name of a type of fabric held to resemble it, it is recorded from 1932.
There is the ordinary Brown Shark, or sea attorney, so called by sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the hard knocks received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering oar. [Herman Melville, "Mardi"]
witch hunt (n.): 1853 in the literal sense (witch-hunting is from 1630s), from witch (n.) + hunt (n.). The extended sense is attested from 1919, American English, later re-popularized in reaction to Cold War anti-Communism.
Senator [Lee S.] Overman. What do you mean by witch hunt?
Mr. [Raymond] Robins. I mean this, Senator. You are familiar with the old witch-hunt attitude, that when people get frightened at things and see bogies, then then get out witch proclamations, and mob action and all kinds of hysteria takes place. ["Bolshevik Propaganda," U.S. Senate subcommittee hearings, 1919]
worry wart (n.): 1956, from comic strip "Out Our Way" by U.S. cartoonist J.R. Williams (1888-1957). According to those familiar with the strip, Worry Wart was the name of a character who caused others to worry, which is the inverse of the current colloquial meaning.