quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- cell (n.)




- early 12c., "small monastery, subordinate monastery" (from Medieval Latin in this sense), later "small room for a monk or a nun in a monastic establishment; a hermit's dwelling" (c. 1300), from Latin cella "small room, store room, hut," related to Latin celare "to hide, conceal."
The Latin word represents PIE root *kel- (2) "to cover, conceal" (cognates: Sanskrit cala "hut, house, hall;" Greek kalia "hut, nest," kalyptein "to cover," koleon "sheath," kelyphos "shell, husk;" Latin clam "secret;" Old Irish cuile "cellar," celim "hide," Middle Irish cul "defense, shelter;" Gothic hulistr "covering," Old English heolstor "lurking-hole, cave, covering," Gothic huljan "cover over," hulundi "hole," hilms "helmet," halja "hell," Old English hol "cave," holu "husk, pod").
Sense of monastic rooms extended to prison rooms (1722). Used in 14c., figuratively, of brain "compartments;" used in biology by 17c. of various cavities (wood structure, segments of fruit, bee combs), gradually focusing to the modern sense of "basic structure of living organisms" (which OED dates to 1845).
Electric battery sense is from 1828, based on original form. Meaning "small group of people working within a larger organization" is from 1925. Cell body is from 1851; cell division from 1846; cell membrane from 1837 (but cellular membrane is 1732); cell wall from 1842. - educrat (n.)




- 1968, usually pejorative; first element from education, second from bureaucrat. Said to have been coined by Claude R. Kirk Jr. (1926-2011), governor of Florida 1967-71.
While political leaders and corporate CEOs, focusing as usual on the quarterly return, call for "workers for the new economy," their educational reforms are producing just that: students with a grab-bag of minor skills and competencies and minds that are sadly uneventful, incapable of genuine intellectual achievement and lacking any sense of continuity with the historical and cultural traditions of our society. Their world is small, bleak, and limited; their world will become ours. [David Solway, "The Turtle Hypodermic of Sickenpods," Quebec, 2000]
- focus (v.)




- 1775 in optics, "bring into focus" (transitive); 1807 in the figurative sense, from focus (n.). Intransitive use by 1864, originally in photography. Related: Focused; focusing; less commonly focussed; focussing.
- refocus (v.)




- 1858, from re- + focus (v.). Related: Refocused; refocusing.
- structurism




- "The belief in or practice of focusing attention on the basic structural components of an object of study, sometimes to the exclusion of all else. rare", Early 20th cent.; earliest use found in Science. From structure + -ism.