英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

climax [climax 词源字典]: climax: [16] Etymologically, a climax is a series of steps by which a goal is achieved, but in the late 18th century English, anticipating the culmination, started using it for the goal itself. It comes, via late Latin, from Greek klimax ‘ladder’, which was ultimately from the same source (the Indo-European base *kli-) as produced English lean. This came to be used metaphorically as a rhetorical term for a figure of speech in which a series of statements is arranged in order of increasing forcefulness, and hence for any escalating progression: ‘the top of the climax of their wickedness’, Edmund Burke 1793.

Whence modern English ‘high point’.
=> ladder, lean[climax etymology, climax origin, 英语词源]
contrive: contrive: [14] In Middle English, contrive was controve; it was not transformed into contrive (perhaps under the influence of Scottish pronunciation) until the 15th century. It came via Old French controver from Latin contropāre ‘represent metaphorically, compare’, a compound verb based on the prefix com- ‘too’ and tropus ‘figure of speech’ (source of English trope). The word’s meaning has progressed through ‘compare via a figure of speech’ and Old French ‘imagine’ to ‘devise’.
=> trope
scheme: scheme: [16] Greek skhéma meant ‘form, figure’. Latin took it over as schēma and used it as the equivalent of figure in a range of applications, such as ‘figure of speech’ and ‘diagram’, many of which were originally taken over by English (‘In the text, by a very elegant scheme of speech he does … once more set them at liberty’, John Tillotson, Sermons 1684). The modern sense ‘plan’, which presumably developed out of ‘diagram’, began to emerge in the mid 17th century.
troubadour: troubadour: [18] A troubadour is etymologically someone who ‘finds’ – that is, ‘composes’ – songs. The word comes via French troubadour from Provençal trobador, a derivative of the verb trobar (whose modern French equivalent is trouver). This seems originally to have meant ‘compose’, and later to have shifted its semantic ground via ‘invent’ to ‘find’.

It is not known for certain where it came from, but one theory traces it back via a Vulgar Latin *tropāre to Latin tropus ‘figure of speech’ (source of English trope [16]). This in turn was borrowed from Greek trópos ‘turn’, a relative of English trophy and tropic. If this is so, its ancestral meaning would be ‘use figures of speech’.
=> tropic
burr (n.): "rough sound of the letter -r-" (especially that common in Northumberland), 1760, later extended to "northern accented speech" in general. Possibly the sound of the word is imitative of the speech peculiarity itself, or it was adapted from one of the senses of bur (q.v.), perhaps from the phrase to have a bur in (one's) throat (late 14c.), which was a figure of speech for "feel a choking sensation, huskiness." OED says the Scottish -r- is a lingual trill, not a true burr.
contrive (v.): early 14c., from Old French controver (Modern French controuver) "to find out, contrive, imagine," from Late Latin contropare "to compare" (via a figure of speech), from Latin com- "with" (see com-) + tropus "song, musical mode," from Greek tropos "figure of speech" (see trope).

Sense evolution (in French) was from "invent with ingenuity" to "invent falsely." Spelled contreve until unexplained 15c. sound change that also affected briar, friar, choir. Related: Contrived; contriving.
egg (n.): mid-14c., egge, mostly in northern England dialect, from Old Norse egg, from Proto-Germanic *ajja(m) (cognates: Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, Dutch, Old High German, German ei, Gothic ada), probably from PIE *owyo-/*oyyo- "egg" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic aja, Russian jajco, Breton ui, Welsh wy, Greek oon, Latin ovum); possibly derived from root *awi- "bird."

This Norse-derived northern word vied in Middle English with native cognates eye, eai, from Old English æg, until finally displacing the others after c. 1500. Caxton (15c.) writes of a merchant (probably a north-country man) in a public house on the Thames who asked for eggs:
And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges, and she understode hym not.
She did, however, recognize another customer's request for "eyren." Used of persons from c. 1600. Bad egg in the figurative sense is from 1855; bad eggs aren't always obvious to outward view (there was an old proverb, "bad bird, bad egg"). To have egg on (one's) face "look foolish" is attested by 1948.
[Young & Rubincam] realize full well that a crew can sometimes make or break a show. It can do little things to ruin a program or else, by giving it its best, can really get that all-important rating. They are mindful of an emcee of a variety show who already has been tabbed "old egg in your face" because the crew has managed to get him in such awkward positions on the TV screen. ["Billboard," March 5, 1949]
Eggs Benedict attested by 1898. The figure of speech represented in to have all (one's) eggs in one basket is attested by 1660s.
exception (n.): late 14c., from Anglo-French excepcioun, Old French excepcion, from Latin exceptionem (nominative exceptio) "an exception, restriction, limitation; an objection," noun of action from past participle stem of excipere "to take out" (see except).

The exception that proves the rule is from law: exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis, "the exception proves the rule in cases not excepted;" exception here being "action of excepting" someone or something from the rule in question, not the person or thing that is excepted. The figure of speech in to take exception is from excipere being used in Roman law as a modern attorney would say objection.
figure (n.): c. 1200, "numeral;" mid-13c., "visible appearance of a person;" late 14c., "visible and tangible form of anything," from Old French figure "shape, body; form of a word; figure of speech; symbol, allegory" (10c), from Latin figura "a shape, form, figure; quality, kind, style; figure of speech," in Late Latin "a sketch, drawing," from PIE *dheigh- "to form, build" (see dough).

Philosophical and scientific senses are from use of Latin figura to translate Greek skhema. Meaning "lines forming a shape" is from mid-14c. From mid-14c. as "human body as represented by art;" late 15c. as "a body, the human form as a whole." The rhetorical use of figure, "peculiar use of words giving meaning different from usual," dates to late 14c.; hence figure of speech (by 1704). Figure-skating is from 1835. Figure eight as a shape was originally figure of eight (c. 1600). From late 14c. as "a cut or diagram inserted in text."
hendiadys (n.): 1580s, figure of speech in which two nouns joined by and are used in place of a noun and an adjective; from Medieval Latin alteration of Greek hen dia duoin "one (thing) by means of two." If this term was used by Greek grammarians it is no longer found in their writings, but it is frequent among Latin writers.
hyperbaton (n.): 1570s, "figure of speech in which the natural order of words or phrases is inverted, especially for the sake of emphasis," from Greek hyperbaton, literally "overstepping," from hyper "over" + bainein "to step" (see come).
hysteron proteron: 1560s, from Late Latin, from Greek, literally "the latter (put as) the former." A figure of speech in which what should come last is put first, from hysteron, neuter of hysteros "latter, second, after" (from PIE *ud-tero-, from root *ud- "up, out;" see out) + proteron, neuter of proteros "before, former," from PIE *pro-, from root *per- (1) "forward, through" (see per).
meiosis (n.): "division of a cell nucleus," 1905, from Greek meiosis "a lessening," from meioun "to lessen," from meion "less," from PIE root *mei- (2) "small" (see minus).

Earlier (1580s) it was a rhetorical term, a figure of speech "weak or negative expression used for a positive and forcible one, so that it may be made all the more emphatic," as when one says "not bad" meaning "very good" or "don't mind if I do" meaning "I really would like to," or this example from "Mark Twain":
"YOUNG AUTHOR." -- Yes Agassiz does recommend authors to eat fish, because the phosphorus in it makes brains. So far you are correct. But I cannot help you to a decision about the amount you need to eat,--at least, not with certainty. If the specimen composition you send is about your fair usual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of whales would be all you would want for the present. Not the largest kind, but simply good, middling-sized whales.
Related: meiotic; meiotically.
prolicide (n.): "killing of one's child or children," 1824, introduced by Dr. John Gordon Smith in the 2nd edition of his "Principles of Forensic Medicine;" from Latin proles "offspring" (see prolific) + -cide.
It is hoped that this word will be considered entitled to reception, on the score of analogy. We have long had parricide, fratricide, and infanticide, all (if I may use the figure of speech,) of the same family; and recently the very appropriate term foeticide has been introduced into Forensic Medicine. In both these last crimes there is a peculiarity arising from the person accused being, in almost every instance, the parent .... In this relation to the beings destroyed, the general term of murderer, or murder of offspring seems to be the fair converse of parricide; and will suit well the purpose of the Medico-legal writer, who considers the two cases as parts of one subject, for the designation of which collectively a proper term was wanting. [Smith]
scheme (n.): 1550s, "figure of speech," from Medieval Latin schema "shape, figure, form, appearance; figure of speech; posture in dancing," from Greek skhema (genitive skhematos) "figure, appearance, the nature of a thing," related to skhein "to get," and ekhein "to have," from PIE root *segh- "to hold, to hold in one's power, to have" (cognates: Sanskrit sahate "he masters, overcomes," sahah "power, victory;" Avestan hazah "power, victory;" Greek ekhein "to have, hold;" Gothic sigis, Old High German sigu, Old Norse sigr, Old English sige "victory").

The sense "program of action" first is attested 1640s. Unfavorable overtones (selfish, devious) began to creep in early 18c. Meaning "complex unity of coordinated component elements" is from 1736. Color scheme is attested from 1884.
synecdoche (n.): "figure of speech in which a part is taken for the whole or vice versa," late 15c. correction of synodoches (late 14c.), from Medieval Latin synodoche, alteration of Late Latin synecdoche, from Greek synekdokhe "the putting of a whole for a part; an understanding one with another," literally "a receiving together or jointly," from synekdekhesthai "supply a thought or word; take with something else, join in receiving," from syn- "with" (see syn-) + ek "out" (see ex-) + dekhesthai "to receive," related to dokein "seem good" (see decent). Typically an attribute or adjunct substituted for the thing meant ("head" for "cattle," "hands" for "workmen," "wheels" for "automobile," etc.). Compare metonymy. Related: Synecdochical.
trope (n.): 1530s, from Latin tropus "a figure of speech," from Greek tropos "a turn, direction, course, way; manner, fashion," in rhetoric, "turn or figure of speech," related to trope "a turning" and trepein "to turn," from PIE root trep- (2) "to turn" (cognates: Sanskrit trapate "is ashamed, confused," properly "turns away in shame;" Latin trepit "he turns"). Technically, in rhetoric, "a figure of speech which consists in the use of a word or phrase in a sense other than that which is proper to it" [OED], "as when we call a stupid fellow an ass, or a shrewd man a fox" [Century Dictionary].