quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- quadrangle (n.)
- late 14c., from Old French quadrangle (13c.) and directly from Late Latin quadrangulum "four-sided figure," noun use of neuter of Latin adjective quadrangulus "having four quarters," from Latin quattuor "four" (see four) + angulus "angle" (see angle (n.)). Meaning "four-sided court between buildings" is from 1590s.
- quadrilateral (n.)
- "four-sided," 1640s, with -al (1) + Latin quadrilaterus, from quadri- "four" (see quadri-) + latus (genitive lateris) "side" (see oblate (n.)). As an adjective from 1650s. Related: Quadrilaterally.
- quadrille (n.)
- 1773, "lively square dance for four couples," from French quadrille (17c.), originally one of four groups of horsemen in a tournament (a sense attested in English from 1738), from Spanish cuadrilla, diminutive of cuadro "four-sided battle square," from Latin quadrum "a square," related to quattuor "four" (see four). The craze for the dance hit England in 1816, and it underwent a vigorous revival late 19c. among the middle classes.
Earlier the name of a popular card game for four hands, and in this sense from French quadrille (1725), from Spanish cuartillo, from cuarto "fourth," from Latin quartus. OED notes it as fashionable from 1726 ("and was in turn superseded by whist"), the year of Swift's (or Congreve's) satirical ballad on the craze:
The commoner, and knight, the peer,
Men of all ranks and fame,
Leave to their wives the only care,
To propagate their name;
And well that duty they fulfil
When the good husband's at Quadrille &c.
- square (n.)
- mid-13c., "tool for measuring right angles, carpenter's square," from Old French esquire "a square, squareness," from Vulgar Latin *exquadra, back-formation from *exquadrare "to square," from Latin ex- "out" (see ex-) + quadrare "make square, set in order, complete," from quadrus "a square" (see quadrant).
Meaning "square shape or area" is recorded by late 14c. (Old English used feower-scyte). Geometric sense "four-sided rectilinear figure" is from 1550s; mathematical sense of "a number multiplied by itself" is first recorded 1550s. Sense of "open space in a town or park" is from 1680s; that of "area bounded by four streets in a city" is from c. 1700. As short for square meal, from 1882. Square one "the very beginning" (often what one must go back to) is from 1960, probably a figure from board games. - tetrahedron (n.)
- "triangular pyramid, solid figure contained by four triangular surfaces," 1560s, from Late Greek tetraedron, noun use of neuter of tetraedros (adj.) "four-sided," from tetra- "four" (see tetra-) + hedra "seat, base, chair, face of a geometric solid," from PIE root *sed- (1) "to sit" (see sedentary). Related: Tetrahedral.
- trapezoid (n.)
- 1706, "a trapezium," from Modern Latin trapezoides, from Late Greek trapezoeides, noun use by Euclid of Greek trapezoeides "trapezium-shaped," from trapeza, literally "table" (see trapezium), + -oeides "shaped" (see -oid). Technically, a plane four-sided figure with no two sides parallel. But in English since c. 1800, often confused with trapezium in its sense of "a quadrilateral figure having only sides parallel and two not."