英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

envoy [envoy 词源字典]: envoy: [14] English has acquired envoy – literally ‘sent on one’s way’ – twice. The first time, it meant ‘final part of a poem’ (this is now usually spelled envoi); the second time (in the 17th century) it meant ‘diplomatic representative’. Both came from the past participle of the French verb envoyer ‘send’, which in turn was a descendant of late Latin inviāre ‘put on the way’, a compound based on the noun via ‘way’. Its plural formed the basis of invoice [16].
=> invoice[envoy etymology, envoy origin, 英语词源]
epistle: epistle: [14] Epistle has never really caught on in English as a general term for a ‘letter’ – too highfalutin – but in fact from a semantic point of view its origins are quite simple. It comes ultimately from Greek epistolé, which meant ‘something sent to someone’. This was a derivative of epistéllein, a compound verb formed from the prefix epí- ‘to’ and stellein ‘send’ (as in apostle, literally ‘someone sent out’).

English actually acquired the word for the first time during the Anglo-Saxon period, directly from Latin epistola, and it survived into the 16th century in the reduced form pistle. In the 14th century, however, it was reborrowed, via Old French, as epistle.
=> apostle
introduce: introduce: [16] Introduce means etymologically ‘lead inside’. It was borrowed from Latin intrōdūcere ‘lead in’, a compound verb formed from the prefix intrō- ‘in, inside’ and dūcere ‘lead’ (source of English duct, duke, educate, produce, etc). Of its main secondary meanings, ‘use for the first time, originate’ emerged in Latin but ‘make known personally to others’ seems to have been a later development.
=> duct, duke, educate, produce
bawd (n.): a complicated word of uncertain history. First attested late 15c., "lewd person" (of either sex; since c. 1700 applied only to women), probably from baude-strote "procurer of prostitutes" (mid-14c.), which may be from Middle English bawde (adj.) "merry, joyous," from Old French baud "gay, licentious" (from Frankish *bald "bold" or some such Germanic source). It would not be the first time a word meaning "joyous" had taken on a sexual sense. The sense evolution shading from "bold" to "lewd" is not difficult; compare Old French baudise "ardor, joy, elation, act of boldness, presumption;" baudie "elation, high spirits," fole baudie "bawdry, shamelessness." The Old French word also is the source of French baudet "donkey," in Picardy dialect "loose woman."

The second element in baude-strote would be trot "one who runs errands," or Germanic *strutt (see strut). But OED doubts all this. There was an Old French baudestrote, baudetrot of the same meaning (13c.), and this may be the direct source of Middle English baude-strote. The obsolete word bronstrops "procuress," frequently found in Middleton's comedies, probably is an alteration of baude-strote.
first-timer (n.): "rookie, one doing something for the first time," 1888, from first time; see first (adj.) + time (n.).
Gatling gun (n.): 1864, named for its designer, U.S. inventor Richard Jordan Gatling (1818-1903); patented by 1862 but not used in American Civil War until the Petersburg campaign of June 1864 as an independent initiative by U.S. Gen. Ben Butler.
For the first time in this war, the Gatling gun was used by Butler in repelling one of Beauregard's midnight attacks. Dispatches state that it was very destructive, and rebel prisoners were very curious to know whether it was loaded all night and fired all day. ["Scientific American," June 18, 1864]
monocle (n.): "single eyeglass," 1886, from French monocle, noun use of adjective monocle "one-eyed, blind in one eye" (13c.), from Late Latin monoculus "one-eyed," from Greek monos "single, alone" (see mono-) + Latin oculus "eye" (see eye (n.)).
That this, a hybrid, a Gallicism, and a word with no obvious meaning to the Englishman who hears it for the first time, should have ousted the entirely satisfactory eyeglass is a melancholy illustration of the popular taste in language. [Fowler]
Prussian: 1550s (n.), 1560s (adj.), from Prussia + -an. Prussian blue pigment (1724) came to English from French bleu de Prusse, so called for being discovered in Berlin, the Prussian capital.
All in all, it seems that Prussian blue was synthesised for the first time around 1706 by the Swiss immigrant Johann Jacob Diesbach in Berlin. [Jens Bartoll and Bärbel Jackisch, "Prussian Blue: A Chronology of the Early Years," "Zeitschrift für Kunsttechnologie und Konservierung" 24, No. 1, 2010]
Early German sources refer to it as Preußisches Ultra-Marin and berliner blau. Prussic acid (1790), is from French acide prussique, so called in reference to prussian blue pigment, to which it is chemically related.
scrod (n.): 1841, "young cod, split and fried or boiled," possibly from Dutch schrood "piece cut off," from Middle Dutch scrode "shred" (cognate with Old English screade "piece cut off;" see shred (n.)). If this is the origin, the notion is probably of fish cut into pieces for drying or cooking.
A Boston brahmin is on a business trip to Philadelphia. In search of dinner, and hungry for that Boston favorite, broiled scrod, he hops into a cab and asks the driver, "My good man, take me someplace where I can get scrod." The cabbie replies, "Pal, that's the first time I've ever been asked that in the passive pluperfect subjunctive." [an old joke in Philadelphia, this version of it from "Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch," Constance Hale, 2012]
spring (n.1): season following winter, the vernal season, c. 1400, earlier springing time (late 14c.), which replaced Lent, the Old English word. From spring (v.); also see spring (n.3). The notion is of the "spring of the year," when plants begin to rise (as in spring of the leaf, 1520s), from the noun in its old sense of "action or time of rising or springing into existence." It was used of sunrise, the waxing of the moon, rising tides, etc.; compare 14c. spring of dai "sunrise," spring of mone "moonrise," late Old English spring "carbuncle, pustule."

Other Germanic languages tend to take words for "fore" or "early" as their roots for the season name (Danish voraar, Dutch voorjaar, literally "fore-year;" German Frühling, from Middle High German vrueje "early"). In 15c. English, the season also was prime-temps, after Old French prin tans, tamps prim (French printemps, which replaced primevère 16c. as the common word for spring), from Latin tempus primum, literally "first time, first season."

Spring fever is from 1843 as "surge of romantic feelings;" earlier of a type of disease or head-cold prevalent in certain places in spring; Old English had lenctenadle. First record of spring cleaning in the domestic sense is by 1843 (in ancient Persia, the first month, corresponding to March-April, was Adukanaiša, which apparently means "Irrigation-Canal-Cleaning Month;" Kent, p.167). Spring chicken "small roasting chicken" (usually 11 to 14 weeks) is recorded from 1780; transferred sense of "young person" first recorded 1906. Baseball spring training attested by 1889, earlier of militias, etc.
veranda (n.): also verandah, 1711, from Hindi varanda, which probably is from Portuguese varanda, originally "long balcony or terrace," of uncertain origin, possibly related to Spanish baranda "railing," and ultimately from Vulgar Latin *barra "barrier, bar." French véranda is borrowed from English.
That the word as used in England and in France was brought by the English from India need not be doubted. But either in the same sense, or in one closely analogous, it appears to have existed, quite independently, in Portuguese and Spanish; and the manner in which it occurs without explanation in the very earliest narrative of the adventure of the Portuguese in India ... seems almost to preclude the possibility of their having learned it in that country for the first time .... [Col. Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, "Hobson-Jobson, A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases," 1903]
wing (v.): c. 1600, "take flight;" 1610s, "fit with wings," from wing (n.). Meaning "shoot a bird in the wing" is from 1802, with figurative extensions to wounds suffered in non-essential parts. Verbal phrase wing it (1885) is said to be from a theatrical slang sense of an actor learning his lines in the wings before going onstage, or else not learning them at all and being fed by a prompter in the wings; but perhaps it is simply an image of a baby bird taking flight from the nest for the first time (the phrase is attested in this sense from 1875). Related: Winged; winging.