quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- carbuncle
[carbuncle 词源字典] - carbuncle: [13] Etymologically, a carbuncle is a ‘small piece of coal’. It comes ultimately from Latin carbunculus, a diminutive form of carbō ‘coal’ (source of English carbon). This reached English via Old French carbuncle. The Latin word had two main metaphorical meanings, based on the idea of a glowing coal: ‘red gem’ and ‘red inflamed spot’, both of which passed into English.
The latter achieved some notoriety in British English in the 1980s following a remark by the Prince of Wales in 1984 comparing a piece of modern architecture unfavourably to a ‘carbuncle’, although ironically from the 15th to the 17th centuries the word was used for ‘something of great splendour’.
=> carbon[carbuncle etymology, carbuncle origin, 英语词源] - fauna
- fauna: [18] Fauna was a Roman goddess of the countryside, sister of Faunus (the Roman equivalent of Greek Pan) who was a nature and fertility god worshipped by shepherds, farmers, etc. The Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus applied her name in 1746 to his catalogue of the animals of Sweden, Fauna suecica ‘Swedish Fauna’, and it has been used since then as a collective term for the animal life of a region (one of the earliest records of its use in English is by the naturalist Gilbert White in 1771). (Faunus, source of English faun [14], may be related ultimately to Latin favēre ‘regard favourably’, source of English favour.)
=> faun - favour
- favour: [14] Latin favēre meant ‘regard favourably, side with protect’. It came ultimately from Indo-European *dhegh-, *dhogh- ‘burn’, which also produced Latin fovēre ‘heat, cherish’ (source of English foment [15]) and English day. From it was derived the Latin noun favor, which passed into English via Old French favour. Favourite [16] came via early modern French favorit from Italian favorito, the past participle of the verb favorire ‘favour’.
=> day, foment - favourable (adj.)
- chiefly British English spelling of favorable; for spelling, see -or. Related: Favourably.