英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

applaud [applaud 词源字典]: applaud: [15] English probably acquired this word directly from Latin applaudere, which meant literally ‘clap at’. It was a compound formed from the prefix ad- ‘to’ and the verb plaudere ‘clap’, source also of plaudit [17] and of explode, whose original sense seems to have been ‘drive from the stage by clapping’ (or, presumably, by any other signals of disapproval favoured by Roman audiences).
=> explode, plaudit[applaud etymology, applaud origin, 英语词源]
fallow: fallow: English has two words fallow, both of considerable antiquity. Fallow ‘uncultivated’ [OE] originally meant ‘ploughed land’. Its present-day adjectival meaning ‘ploughed but not sown’ or, more broadly, just ‘uncultivated’, developed in the 15th century. Fallow ‘pale yellowish-brown’ [OE] (now used only in fallow deer) comes via Germanic *falwaz from Indo- European *polwos, a derivative of the base *pol-, *pel-, which also produced English appal [14] (originally ‘grow pale’), pale, and pallid.

Its Germanic relatives include German fahl ‘pale, fawn’ and falb ‘pale yellow’. (Germanic *falwaz, incidentally, was the ancestor of French fauve ‘wild animal’, source of the term fauvism [20] applied to an early 20th-century European art movement that favoured simplified forms and bold colours.)
=> appal, pale, pallid
sphinx: sphinx: [16] The original Sphinx was a monster, half woman and half lion, which terrorized the country around Thebes in ancient Greece. According to legend, it would waylay travellers and ask them a riddle; and if they could not solve it, it killed them. One of its favoured methods was strangulation, and its name supposedly means ‘the strangler’ – as if it were derived from Greek sphíggein ‘bind tight’ (source of English sphincter [16]).

However, this account of its name sounds as mythological as the account of its existence, and a more likely explanation is perhaps that the word was derived from the name of Mount Phikion, not far from ancient Thebes. One of the first yachts to carry a spinnaker sail, in the mid-1860s, was the Sphinx, and it has been conjectured that its name (or rather a mispronunciation /spingks/) formed the basis of the term spinnaker [19], perhaps as a partial blend with spanker, the name of another type of sail.
=> spinnaker
symposium: symposium: [18] A symposium is etymologically a ‘get-together for a drink’. The word comes via Latin symposium from Greek sumpósion, a derivative of sumpótēs ‘drinking companion’. This was a compound noun formed from the prefix sun- ‘together’ and the base *pot- ‘drink’ (source of English poison, potion, etc). The Greeks favoured lubricating intellectual discussion with drink, and so the term sumpósion came to be used for a meeting which combined elements of party and intellectual interchange.
=> poison, potable, potion
tommy gun: tommy gun: [20] The name of the tommy gun, a lightweight hand-held machine gun favoured by Chicago gangsters, commemorates its originator: as its full designation, the Thompson submachine gun, reveals, a man called Thompson. He was John T. Thompson (1860– 1940), a general in the US Army who had links with the Auto-Ordnance Corporation of New York City. The idea for the gun was originally his, and although it was actually designed by O.V. Payne, it was Thompson’s name that it carried when it came on the market in 1919. The substitution with the colloquial Tommy is first recorded in 1929.
disfavour: chiefly British English spelling of disfavor (q.v.); for ending, see -or. Related: Disfavoured; disfavouring.
Muhammadan: "Archaic term for Muslim (not favoured by Muslims)", Late 17th century: from the name of the prophet Muhammad (see Muhammad), + -an.