英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

album [album 词源字典]: album: [17] Latin albus ‘white’ has been the source of a variety of English words: alb ‘ecclesiastical tunic’ [OE], albedo ‘reflective power’ [19], Albion [13], an old word for Britain, probably with reference to its white cliffs, albumen ‘white of egg’ [16], and auburn, as well as albino. Album is a nominalization of the neuter form of the adjective, which was used in classical times for a blank, or white, tablet on which public notices were inscribed.

Its original adoption in the modern era seems to have been in Germany, where scholars kept an album amicorum ‘album of friends’ in which to collect colleagues’ signatures. This notion of an autograph book continues in Dr Johnson’s definition of album in his Dictionary 1755: ‘a book in which foreigners have long been accustomed to insert the autographs of celebrated people’, but gradually it became a repository for all sorts of souvenirs, including in due course photographs.
=> alb, albedo, albino, albumen, auburn, daub[album etymology, album origin, 英语词源]
boxer: boxer: [15] Boxer is a much travelled word. In its original sense ‘fighter’ it comes of course from the verb box, the origins of which remain mysterious. German borrowed the name for a new breed of dog, a sort of elongated, more elegant version of a bulldog – presumably either in tribute to its supposed pugnaciousness or because its flattened nose looked like that of an unsuccessful boxer.

Then in the 1930s English acquired this new application back from German. The use of ‘Boxer’ for the Chinese rebels around the turn of the 20th century who attempted to drive out all foreigners is based on their Chinese name, yi hé quán, literally ‘righteous harmonious fists’.
galoshes: galoshes: [14] In modern terms, galoshes might be etymologically rendered as ‘little French shoes’. The word comes from Old French galoche, which was an alteration of late Latin gallicula. This in turn was a diminutive form of Latin gallica, short for gallica solea ‘Gallic sandal, sandal from Gaul’ (the name Gaul, incidentally, and the Latin-based Gallic [17], come ultimately from prehistoric Germanic *walkhoz ‘foreigners’, which is related also to Walloon, walnut, and Welsh). The term galosh was originally used in English for a sort of clog; the modern sense ‘overshoe’ did not develop until the early 19th century.
=> gallic, walloon, walnut, welsh
tycoon: tycoon: [19] Japanese taikun was a title used for the military commander or shogun of Japan, particularly by his supporters when addressing foreigners, in the attempt to convey the impression that he was more powerful and important than the emperor. For it meant literally ‘great prince, emperor’. It was borrowed from ancient Chinese t’ai kiuən ‘emperor’, a compound formed from t’ai ‘great’ and kiuən ‘prince’. English acquired it in the 1850s, and it began to be used more generally for a ‘highranking personage’ in the USA soon afterwards. The specific application to businessmen seems to have evolved after World War I.
xenon: xenon: [19] Xenon is etymologically the ‘strange’ gas. It was named in 1898 by its discoverer, the British chemist Sir William Ramsay. He adapted the term from the neuter form of Greek xénos ‘strange’, which may be a distant relative of English guest, hospital, host, etc, and is also the source of English xenophobia ‘fear of foreigners’ [19].
=> guest, hospital, host, xenophobia
album (n.): 1650s, from Latin album "white color, whiteness," neuter of albus "white" (see alb). In classical times "a blank tablet on which the Pontifex Maximus registered the principal events of the year; a list of names." Revived 16c. by German scholars whose custom was to keep an album amicorum of colleagues' signatures; meaning then expanded into "book to collect souvenirs." According to Johnson, "a book in which foreigners have long been accustomed to insert autographs of celebrated people." Photographic albums first recorded 1859. Meaning "long-playing gramophone record" is by 1951, because the sleeves they came in resembled large albums.
barbarian (adj.): mid-14c., from Medieval Latin barbarinus (source of Old French barbarin "Berber, pagan, Saracen, barbarian"), from Latin barbaria "foreign country," from Greek barbaros "foreign, strange, ignorant," from PIE root *barbar- echoic of unintelligible speech of foreigners (compare Sanskrit barbara- "stammering," also "non-Aryan," Latin balbus "stammering," Czech blblati "to stammer").

Greek barbaroi (n.) meant "all that are not Greek," but especially the Medes and Persians. Originally not entirely pejorative, its sense darkened after the Persian wars. The Romans (technically themselves barbaroi) took up the word and applied it to tribes or nations which had no Greek or Roman accomplishments. The noun is from late 14c., "person speaking a language different from one's own," also (c. 1400) "native of the Barbary coast;" meaning "rude, wild person" is from 1610s.
cigar (n.): 1730, from Spanish cigarro (source also of French cigare), probably from Maya sicar "to smoke rolled tobacco leaves," from si'c "tobacco;" or from or influenced by Spanish cigarra "grasshopper, cicada" (on resemblance of shape), from Vulgar Latin *cicala (source also of French cigale, Italian cigala). Cigar-box is from 1819; cigar-store from 1839; the wooden cigar-store Indian is from 1879, American English, but wooden images of feathered Indians or Negroes are mentioned outside tobacconists' shops in England by 1852, and are said to have been in earlier use on the Continent.
Blackamoors and other dark-skinned foreigners have always possessed considerable attractions as signs for tobacconists, and sometimes also for public-houses. Negroes, with feathered headdresses and kilts, smoking pipes, are to be seen outside tobacco shops on the Continent, as well as in England. [Jacob Larwood and John Camden Hotten, "The History of Signboards From the Earliest Times to the Present Day," London, 1867]
Donegal: county in northern Ireland, from Irish Dun na nGall "fort of the foreigners" (in this case, the Danes); also see Galloway.
ethnic (adj.): late 15c. (earlier ethnical, early 15c.) "pagan, heathen," from Late Latin ethnicus, from Greek ethnikos "of or for a nation, national," by some writers (Polybius, etc.) "adopted to the genius or customs of a people, peculiar to a people," and among the grammarians "suited to the manners or language of foreigners," from ethnos "band of people living together, nation, people, tribe, caste," also used of swarms or flocks of animals, properly "people of one's own kind," from PIE *swedh-no-, suffixed form of root *s(w)e-, third person pronoun and reflexive, also forming words referring to the social group (see idiom). Earlier in English as a noun, "a heathen, pagan, one who is not a Christian or Jew" (c. 1400). In modern noun use, "member of an ethnic group," from 1945.

In Septuagint, Greek ta ethne translates Hebrew goyim, plural of goy "nation," especially of non-Israelites, hence especially "gentile nation, foreign nation not worshipping the true God" (see goy), and ethnikos is used by ecclesiastical writers in a sense of "savoring of the nature of pagans, alien to the worship of the true God," and as a noun "the pagan, the gentile." The classical sense of "peculiar to a race or nation" in English is attested from 1851, a return to the word's original meaning; that of "different cultural groups" is 1935; and that of "racial, cultural or national minority group" is American English 1945. Ethnic cleansing is attested from 1991.
Although the term 'ethnic cleansing' has come into English usage only recently, its verbal correlates in Czech, French, German, and Polish go back much further. [Jerry Z. Muller, "Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism," Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008]
flamenco (n.): 1882, from Spanish flamenco, first used of Gypsy dancing in Andalusia. The word in Spanish meant "a Fleming, native of Flanders" (Dutch Vlaming) and also "flamingo." Speculation are varied and colorful about the connection between the bird, the people, and the gypsy dance of Andalusia.

Spain ruled Flanders for many years in 16c., and King Carlos I brought with him to Madrid an entire Flemish court. One etymology suggests the dance was so called from the bright costumes and energetic movements, which the Spanish associated with Flanders; another is that Spaniards, especially Andalusians, like to name things by their opposites, and because the Flemish were tall and blond and the gypsies short and dark, the gypsies were called "Flemish;" others hold that flamenco was the general Spanish word for all foreigners, gypsies included; or that Flemish noblemen, bored with court life, took to slumming among the gypsies. Compare Gypsy.
Gallic (adj.): 1670s, "of or pertaining to the French," from Latin Gallicus "pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls," from Latin Gallia "Gaul" and Gallus "a Gaul" from a native Celtic name (see Gaelic), though some connect the word with prehistoric West Germanic *walkhoz "foreigners" (see Welsh). Originally used in English rhetorically or mockingly for "French." The cock as a symbol of France is based on the pun of Gallus "a Gaul" and Latin gallus "cock" (see gallinaceous). Earlier was Gallican (1590s).
It means not simply 'French,' but 'characteristically', 'delightfully', 'distressingly', or 'amusingly' 'French' ... not 'of France', but 'of the typical Frenchman'. [Fowler]
As "of or pertaining to the ancient Gauls" from 1796.
gentile (n.): "one who is not a Jew," c. 1400; earlier "one who is not a Christian, a pagan" (late 14c.), from Late Latin noun use of Latin gentilis "of the same family or clan, of or belonging to a Roman gens," from gens (genitive gentis) "race, clan" (see genus, and compare gentle).

The Latin adjective also meant "of or belonging to the same nation," hence, as a noun, gentiles (plural) might mean "men of family; persons belonging to the same family; fellow countrymen, kinsmen," but also "foreigners, barbarians" (as opposed to Romans), those bound only by the Jus Gentium, the "law of nations," defined as "the law that natural reason establishes among all mankind and is followed by all peoples alike."

The Latin word then was used in the Vulgate to translate Greek ethnikos (see ethnic), from ta ethne "the nations," which translated Hebrew ha goyim "the (non-Jewish) nations" (see goy). Hence in Late Latin, after the Christianization of Rome, gentilis also could mean "pagans, heathens," as opposed to Christians. Based on Scripture, gentile also was used by Mormons (1847) and Shakers (1857) to refer to those not of their profession.
grisette (n.): c. 1700, "gray woolen fabric," from French grisette, diminutive of gris "grey," which is from Frankish or some other Germanic source (see grey (adj.)). From 1723 as "young French working girl," especially a shopgirl or seamstress, on the notion of wearing clothing made from such fabric; "commonly applied by foreigners in Paris to the young women of this class who are free in their manners on the streets and in the shops" [Century Dictionary].
outlandish (adj.): Old English utlendisc "of a foreign country, not native," from utland "foreign land," literally "outland" (see out + land (n.)) + -ish. Sense of "unfamiliar, strange, odd, bizarre" (such as the customs of foreigners may seem to natives) is attested from 1590s.
tycoon (n.): 1857, title given by foreigners to the shogun of Japan (said to have been used by his supporters when addressing foreigners, as an attempt to convey that the shogun was more important than the emperor), from Japanese taikun "great lord or prince," from Chinese tai "great" + kiun "lord." Transferred meaning "important person" is attested from 1861, in reference to U.S. president Abraham Lincoln (in the diary of his secretary, John Hay); specific application to "wealthy and powerful businessman" is post-World War I.
xenelasia (n.): "prevention of aliens from settling in Sparta," Greek, literally "expulsion of foreigners," from xenelatein "to expel foreigners," from xenos "stranger" (see xeno-) + elatos, verbal adjective of elaunein "drive, drive away, beat out."