英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

exaggerate [exaggerate 词源字典]: exaggerate: [16] Something that is exaggerated is literally ‘piled up’ out of all due proportion; indeed that is what it originally meant in English: ‘With their flipping and flapping up and down in the dirt they exaggerate a mountain of mire’, Philip Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses 1583. It was not really until the 17th century that the current sense ‘overemphasize’ came to the fore, although it was already present in the word’s Latin original. This was exaggerāre, a compound formed from the intensive prefix exand aggerāre ‘pile up’ (a derivative of agger ‘heap’).
[exaggerate etymology, exaggerate origin, 英语词源]
flag (n.1): "cloth ensign," late 15c., now in all modern Germanic languages (German Flagge, Dutch vlag, Danish flag, Swedish flagg, etc.) but apparently first recorded in English, of unknown origin, but likely connected to flag (v.1) or else an independent imitative formation "expressing the notion of something flapping in the wind" [OED]. A guess considered less likely is that it is from flag (n.2) on the notion of being square and flat.

Meaning "name and editorial information on a newspaper" is by 1956. U.S. Flag Day (1894) is in reference to the adopting of the Stars and Stripes by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777.
flag (v.1): 1540s, "flap about loosely," probably a later variant of Middle English flakken, flacken "to flap, flutter" (late 14c.), which probably is from Old Norse flaka "to flicker, flutter, hang losse," perhaps imitative of something flapping lazily in the wind. Sense of "go limp, droop, become languid" is first recorded 1610s. Related: Flagged; flagging.
flap (v.): early 14c., "dash about, shake, beat (the wings);" later "strike, hit" (mid-14c.); probably ultimately imitative. Meaning "to swing about loosely" is from 1520s. Related: Flapped; flapping.
flapper (n.): 1560s, "one who or that which flaps," agent noun from flap (v.). Sense of "forward young woman" is 1921 slang, but the exact connection is disputed. Perhaps from flapper "young wild-duck or partridge" (1747), with reference to flapping wings while learning to fly, many late 19c. examples of which are listed in Wright's "English Dialect Dictionary" (1900), including one that defines it as "A young partridge unable to fly. Applied in joke to a girl of the bread-and-butter age."

Other suggested sources include a late 19c. northern English dialectal use of the word for "teen-age girl" (on notion of one with the hair not yet put up), or an earlier meaning "prostitute" (1889), which is perhaps from dialectal flap "young woman of loose character" (1610s). Any or all of these might have converged in the 1920s sense. Wright also has flappy, of persons, "wild, unsteady, flighty," with the note that it also was "Applied to a person's character, as 'a flappy lass,'" and further on he lists flappy sket (n.) "an immoral woman." In Britain the word took on political tones in reference to the debate over voting rights.
"Flapper" is the popular press catch-word for an adult woman worker, aged twenty-one to thirty, when it is a question of giving her the vote under the same conditions as men of the same age. ["Punch," Nov. 30, 1927]
flip-flop (n.): also flip flop, "plastic thong beach sandal," by 1970, imitative of the sound of walking in them. Flip-flap had been used in various senses, mostly echoic or imitative of a kind of loose flapping movement, since 1520s:
Flip-flaps, a peculiar rollicking dance indulged in by costermongers, better described as the double shuffle; originally a kind of somersault. [Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1864]
Flip-flop in the general sense of "complete reversal of direction" dates from 1900; it began to be used in electronics in the 1930s in reference to switching circuits that alternate between two states. As a verb by 1897. Flop (n.) in the sense "a turn-round, especially in politics" is from 1880.
flirt (n.): 1540s, "joke, jest, stroke of wit, contemptuous remark," from flirt (v.). By 1560s as "a pert young hussey" [Johnson], and Shakespeare has flirt-gill (i.e. Jill) "a woman of light or loose behavior" (Fletcher formalizes it as flirt-gillian), while flirtgig was a 17c. Yorkshire dialect word for "a giddy, flighty girl." One of the many fl- words suggesting loose, flapping motion and connecting the notions of flightiness and licentiousness. Compare English dialect and Scottish flisk "to fly about nimbly, skip, caper" (1590s); source of Scott's fliskmahoy "girl giddy and full of herself." The meaning "person who plays at courtship" is from 1732 (as the name of female characters in plays at least since 1689 (Aphra Behn's "The Widow Ranter")). Also in early use sometimes "person one flirts with," though by 1862 this was being called a flirtee.
fly (n.): Old English fleoge "a fly, winged insect," from Proto-Germanic *fleugon "flying insect" (cognates: Old Saxon fleiga, Old Norse fluga, Middle Dutch vlieghe, Dutch vlieg, Old High German flioga, German Fliege "fly"); literally "the flying (insect)" (compare Old English fleogende "flying"), from same source as fly (v.1).

Originally any winged insect (moths, gnats, beetles, locusts, hence butterfly, etc.) and long used by farmers and gardeners for any insect parasite. Flies figuratively for "large numbers" of anything is from 1590s. Plural flien (as in oxen, etc.) gradually normalized 13c.-15c. to -s. Fly in the ointment is from Eccles. x:1. Fly on the wall "unseen observer" first recorded 1881. No flies on _____ "no lack of activity or alertness on the part of," is attested by 1866. Meaning "fish-hook dressed to resemble an insect" is from 1580s; Fly-fishing is from 1650s. Fly-catcher "bird which eats insects on the wing" is from 1670s. The fly agaric mushroom (1788) so called because it was used as a poison for flies.

The sense of "a flight, flying" is from mid-15c. From the verb and the notion of "flapping as a wing does" comes the noun sense of "tent flap" (1810), which was extended to "strip of material sewn into a garment as a covering for buttons" or some other purpose (1844). Baseball fly ball attested by 1866. To do something on the fly is 1856, apparently from baseball.
When the catcher sees several fielders running to catch a ball, he should name the one he thinks surest to take it, when the others should not strive to catch the ball on the fly, but only, in case of its being missed, take it on the bound. ["The American Boys Book of Sports and Games," New York, 1864]
lapwing (n.): Middle English lappewinke (late 14c.), lapwyngis (early 15c.), folk etymology alteration of Old English hleapewince, probably literally "leaper-winker," from hleapan "to leap" + wince "totter, waver, move rapidly," related to wincian "to wink." Said to be so called from "the manner of its flight" [OED] "in reference to its irregular flapping manner of flight" [Barnhart], but the lapwing also flaps on the ground pretending to have a broken wing to lure egg-hunters away from its nest, which seems a more logical explanation. Its Greek name was polyplagktos "luring on deceitfully."
ornithopter (n.): 1908, from French ornithoptère (1908), a machine designed to fly be mechanical flapping of wings, from ornitho- + Greek pteron "wing" (see pterodactyl). A mode of flight considered promising at least since Leonardo's day.