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absolute [absolute 词源字典]: absolute: [14] Absolute, absolution, and absolve all come ultimately from the same source: Latin absolvere ‘set free’, a compound verb made up from the prefix ab- ‘away’ and the verb solvere ‘loose’ (from which English gets solve and several other derivatives, including dissolve and resolve). From the 13th to the 16th century an alternative version of the verb, assoil, was in more common use than absolve; this came from the same Latin original, but via Old French rather than by a direct route.

The t of absolute and absolution comes from the past participial stem of the Latin verb – absolūt-. The noun, the adjective, and the verb have taken very different routes from their common semantic starting point, the notion of ‘setting free’: absolve now usually refers to freeing from responsibility and absolution to the remitting of sins, while absolute now means ‘free from any qualification or restriction’.
=> dissolve, resolve, solve[absolute etymology, absolute origin, 英语词源]
acquire: acquire: [15] The original source of acquire, Latin acquīrere, meant literally ‘get something extra’. It was formed from the verb quaerere ‘try to get or obtain’ (from which English gets query, the derivatives enquire and require, and, via the past participial stem, quest and question) plus the prefix ad-, conveying the idea of being additional. English borrowed the word via Old French acquerre, and it was originally spelled acquere, but around 1600 the spelling was changed to acquire, supposedly to bring it more into conformity with its Latin source.
=> query, quest, question
advertise: advertise: [15] When it was originally borrowed into English, from French, advertise meant ‘notice’. It comes ultimately from the Latin verb advertere ‘turn towards’ (whose past participle adversus ‘hostile’ is the source of English adverse [14] and adversity [13]). A later variant form, advertīre, passed into Old French as avertir ‘warn’ (not to be confused with the avertir from which English gets avert [15] and averse [16], which came from Latin abvertere ‘turn away’).

This was later reformed into advertir, on the model of its Latin original, and its stem form advertiss- was taken into English, with its note of ‘warning’ already softening into ‘giving notice of’, or simply ‘noticing’. The modern sense of ‘describing publicly in order to increase sales’ had its beginnings in the mid 18th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the verb was pronounced with the main stress on its second syllable, like the advertise- in advertisement.
=> adverse, adversity, verse
advocate: advocate: [14] Etymologically, advocate contains the notion of ‘calling’, specifically of calling someone in for advice or as a witness. This was the meaning of the Latin verb advocāre (formed from vocāre ‘call’, from which English also gets vocation). Its past participle, advocātus, came to be used as a noun, originally meaning ‘legal witness or adviser’, and later ‘attorney’.

In Old French this became avocat, the form in which English borrowed it; it was later relatinized to advocate. The verb advocate does not appear until the 17th century. The word was also borrowed into Dutch, as advocaat, and the compound advocaatenborrel, literally ‘lawyer’s drink’, has, by shortening, given English the name for a sweetish yellow concoction of eggs and brandy.
=> invoke, revoke, vocation
affinity: affinity: [14] The abstract notion of ‘relationship’ in affinity was originally a more concrete conception of a border. The word comes, via Old French afinite, from the Latin adjective affinis, which meant literally ‘bordering on something’. It was formed from the prefix ad- ‘to’ and the noun finis ‘border’ (from which English also gets finish, confine, and define).
=> confine, define, finish, paraffin, refine
age: age: [13] Age has undergone considerable transmutations and abbreviations since its beginnings in Latin. Its immediate source in English is Old French aage, which was the product of a hypothetical Vulgar Latin form *aetāticum (the t is preserved in Provençal atge). This was based on Latin aetāt- (stem of aetās), which was a shortening of aevitās, which in turn came from aevum ‘lifetime’.

This entered English in more recognizable form in medieval, primeval, etc; it is related to Greek aión ‘age’, from which English gets aeon [17], and it can be traced back to the same root that produced (via Old Norse eí) the now archaic adverb ay(e) ‘ever’ (as in ‘will aye endure’).
=> aeon, aye
aggregate: aggregate: [15] Etymologically, aggregate contains the notion of a collection of animals. It comes from greg-, the stem of the Latin noun grex ‘flock, herd’ (also the source of gregarious). This formed the basis of a verb aggregāre ‘collect together’, whose past participle aggregātus passed into English as aggregate. Latin grex is related to Greek agorā ‘open space, market place’, from which English gets agoraphobia.
=> agoraphobia, egregious, gregarious, segregate
aggression: aggression: [17] The violent associations of aggression have developed from the much milder notion of ‘approaching’ somebody. The Latin verb aggredī ‘attack’ was based on the prefix ad- ‘towards’ and gradī ‘walk’, a verb derived in its turn from the noun gradus ‘step’ (from which English gets, among many others, grade, gradual, and degree).
=> degree, grade, gradual
agree: agree: [14] Originally, if a thing ‘agreed you’, it was to your liking, it pleased you. This early meaning survives in the adjective agreeable [14], but the verb has meanwhile moved on via ‘to reconcile (people who have quarrelled)’ and ‘to come into accord’ to its commonest presentday sense, ‘to concur’. It comes from Old French agréer ‘to please’, which was based on the phrase a gré ‘to one’s liking’. Gré was descended from Latin grātum, a noun based on grātus ‘pleasing’, from which English also gets grace and grateful.
=> congratulate, grace, grateful, gratitude
alopecia: alopecia: [14] This word appears to derive from the resemblance observed by the Greeks between baldness in human beings and mange in foxes. The Greek for ‘fox’ was alōpēx, hence alōpekía, borrowed into Latin as alopēcia. Alōpēx is related to Latin vulpēs ‘fox’, from which English gets vulpine ‘foxlike’ [17].
=> vulpine
alpaca: alpaca: [18] English gets the term alpaca (for a South American animal related to the llama) from Spanish, which in turn got it from alpako, the word for the animal in the Aymara language of Bolivia and Peru. Alpako was a derivative of the adjective pako ‘reddish-brown’, a reference to the colour of the animal’s hair.
alter: alter: [14] Alter comes from the Latin word for ‘other (of two)’, alter. In late Latin a verb was derived from this, alterāre, which English acquired via French altérer. Latin alter (which also gave French autre and English alternate [16], alternative [17], altercation [14], and altruism, not to mention alter ego) was formed from the root *al- (source of Latin alius – from which English gets alien, alias, and alibi – Greek allos ‘other’, and English else) and the comparative suffix *-tero-, which occurs also in English other.

Hence the underlying meaning of Latin alter (and, incidentally, of English other) is ‘more other’, with the implication of alternation between the two.
=> alias, alien, alternative, altruism, else
ambassador: ambassador: [14] Appropriately enough, ambassador is a highly cosmopolitan word. It was borrowed back and forth among several European languages before arriving in English. Its ultimate source appears to be the Indo- European root *ag- ‘drive, lead’, whose other numerous offspring include English act and agent. With the addition of the prefix *amb- ‘around’ (as in ambidextrous), this produced in the Celtic languages of Gaul the noun ambactos, which was borrowed by Latin as ambactus ‘vassal’.

The Latin word then found its way into the Germanic languages – Old English had ambeht ‘servant, messenger’, Old High German ambaht (from which modern German gets amt ‘official position’) – from which it was later borrowed back into medieval Latin as ambactia. This seems to have formed the basis of a verb, *ambactiāre ‘go on a mission’ (from which English ultimately gets embassy), from which in turn was derived the noun *ambactiātor.

This became ambasciator in Old Italian, from which Old French borrowed it as ambassadeur. The word had a be wildering array of spellings in Middle English (such as ambaxadour and inbassetour) before finally settling down as ambassador in the 16th century.
=> embassy
amethyst: amethyst: [13] The amethyst gets its name from a supposition in the ancient world that it was capable of preventing drunkenness. The Greek word for ‘intoxicate’ was methúskein, which was based ultimately on the noun methú ‘wine’ (source of English methyl, and related to English mead). The addition of the negative prefix a- ‘not’ produced the adjective améthustos, used in the phrase líthos améthustos ‘anti-intoxicant stone’. This was borrowed as a noun into Latin (amethystus), and ultimately into Old French as ametiste. English took it over and in the 16th century re-introduced the -th- spelling of the Latin word.
=> mead, methyl
ammonia: ammonia: [18] Ammonia gets its name ultimately from Amon, or Amen, the Egyptian god of life and reproduction. Near the temple of Amon in Libya were found deposits of ammonium chloride, which was hence named sal ammoniac – ‘salt of Amon’. The gas nitrogen hydride is derived from sal ammoniac, and in 1782 the Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman coined the term ammonia for it.
ammonite: ammonite: [18] Like ammonia, the ammonite gets its name from a supposed connection with Amon, or Amen, the Egyptian god of life and reproduction. In art he is represented as having ram’s horns, and the resemblance of ammonites to such horns led to their being named in the Middle Ages cornu Ammōnis ‘horn of Amon’. In the 18th century the modern Latin term ammonītēs (anglicized as ammonite) was coined for them. Earlier, ammonites had been called snake stones in English, a term which survived dialectally well into the 19th century.
amuse: amuse: [15] Amuse is probably a French creation, formed with the prefix a- from the verb muser (from which English gets muse ‘ponder’ [14]). The current meaning ‘divert, entertain’ did not begin to emerge until the 17th century, and even so the commonest application of the verb in the 17th and 18th centuries was ‘deceive, cheat’. This seems to have developed from an earlier ‘bewilder, puzzle’, pointing back to an original sense ‘make someone stare open-mouthed’.

This links with the probable source of muser, namely muse ‘animal’s mouth’, from medieval Latin mūsum (which gave English muzzle [15]). There is no connection with the inspirational muse, responsible for music and museums.
=> muse, muzzle
anger: anger: [12] The original notion contained in this word was of ‘distress’ or ‘affliction’; ‘rage’ did not begin to enter the picture until the 13th century. English acquired it from Old Norse angr ‘grief’, and it is connected with a group of words which contain connotations of ‘constriction’: German and Dutch eng (and Old English enge) mean ‘narrow’, Greek ánkhein meant ‘squeeze, strangle’ (English gets angina from it), and Latin angustus (source of English anguish) also meant ‘narrow’. All these forms point back to an Indo-European base *angg- ‘narrow’.
=> angina, anguish
annex: annex: [14] The verb annex entered English about a century and a half before the noun. It came from French annexer, which was formed from the past participial stem of Latin annectere ‘tie together’ (a verb annect, borrowed directly from this, was in learned use in English from the 16th to the 18th centuries). Annectere itself was based on the verb nectere ‘tie’, from which English also gets nexus and connect. The noun was borrowed from French annexe, and in the sense ‘extra building’ retains its -e.
=> connect, nexus
apprehend: apprehend: [14] The underlying notion in apprehend is of ‘seizing’ or ‘grasping’; it comes ultimately from the Latin verb prehendere ‘seize’ (source also of comprehend, predatory, and prehensile). Latin apprehendere ‘lay hold of’, formed with the prefix ad-, developed the metaphorical meaning ‘seize with the mind’ – that is, ‘learn’; and that was the earliest meaning apprehend had in English when it was borrowed either directly from Latin or via French appréhender: John de Trevisa, for instance, in his translation of De proprietatibus rerum 1398 writes ‘he holds in mind … without forgetting, all that he apprehends’.

More familiar modern senses, such as ‘arrest’ and ‘understand’, followed in the 16th century. A contracted form of the Latin verb, apprendere, became Old French aprendre, modern French apprendre ‘learn’. This provided the basis for the derivative aprentis ‘someone learning’, from which English gets apprentice [14]; and its past participle appris, in the causative sense ‘taught’, was the source of English apprise [17].

The chief modern meaning of the derived noun apprehension, ‘fear’, arose via the notion of ‘grasping something with the mind’, then ‘forming an idea of what will happen in the future’, and finally ‘anticipation of something unpleasant’.
=> apprentice, comprehend, impregnable, predatory, prehensile
apricot: apricot: [16] The word apricot reached English by a peculiarly circuitous route from Latin. The original term used by the Romans for the apricot, a fruit which came ultimately from China, was prūnum Arminiacum or mālum Arminiacum ‘Armenian plum or apple’ (Armenia was an early source of choice apricots). But a new term gradually replaced these: mālum praecocum ‘early-ripening apple’ (praecocus was a variant of praecox, from which English gets precocious). Praecocum was borrowed by a succession of languages, making its way via Byzantine Greek beríkokkon and Arabic al birqūq ‘the apricot’ to Spanish albaricoque and Portuguese albricoque.

This was the source of the English word, but its earliest form, abrecock, shows that it had already acquired the initial abrof French abricot, and the final -t followed almost immediately. Spellings with p instead of b are also found in the 16th century.
=> precocious
arid: arid: [17] English acquired arid from Latin aridus, either directly or via French aride. The Latin adjective is part of a web of related words denoting ‘dryness’ or ‘burning’: it came from the verb ārēre ‘be dry’, which may be the source of area; it seems to have connections with a prehistoric Germanic *azgon, source of English ash ‘burnt matter’, and with Greek azaléos ‘dry’, source of English azalea [18] (so named from its favouring dry soil); and the Latin verb ardēre ‘burn’ was derived from it, from which English gets ardour [14], ardent [14], and arson.
=> ardour, area, arson, ash, azalea
ark: ark: [OE] The notion underlying ark seems to be that of ‘enclosing or defending a space’. Its ultimate Latin source, arca ‘large box or chest’, was related to arx ‘citadel’ and to arcēre ‘close up’ (from which English gets arcane). Arca was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic, and came into English as ærc. In addition to meaning ‘chest’ (a sense which had largely died out by the 18th century), it signified the ‘coffer in which the ancient Hebrews kept the tablets of the Ten Commandments’ – the Ark of the Covenant – and by extension, the large commodious vessel in which Noah escaped the Flood.
=> arcane, exercise
arrowroot: arrowroot: [17] Arrowroot, a tropical American plant with starchy tubers, gets its name by folk etymology, the process whereby an unfamiliar foreign word is reformulated along lines more accessible to the speakers of a language. In this case the word in question was aru-aru, the term used by the Arawak Indians of South America for the plant (meaning literally ‘meal of meals’). English-speakers adapted this to arrowroot because the root of the plant was used by the Indians to heal wounds caused by poisoned arrows.
arsenal: arsenal: [16] The word arsenal has a complicated history, stretching back through Italian to Arabic. The Arabic original was dāras- sinā‘ah, literally ‘house of the manufacture’. This seems to have been borrowed into Venetian Italian, somehow losing its initial d, as arzaná, and been applied specifically to the large naval dockyard in Venice (which in the 15th century was the leading naval power in the Mediterranean).

The dockyard is known to this day as the Arzenale, showing the subsequent addition of the -al ending. English acquired the word either from Italian or from French arsenal, and at first used it only for dockyards (‘making the Arsenal at Athens, able to receive 1000 ships’, Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny’s Natural history 1601); but by the end of the 16th century it was coming into more general use as a ‘military storehouse’.

The English soccer club Arsenal gets its name from its original home in Woolwich, south London, where there used to be a British government arsenal.
art: art: [13] Like arm, arthritis, and article, art goes back to an Indo-European root *ar-, which meant ‘put things together, join’. Putting things together implies some skill: hence Latin ars ‘skill’. Its stem art- produced Old French art, the source of the English word. It brought with it the notion of ‘skill’, which it still retains; the modern association with painting, sculpture, etc did not begin until the mid 17th century.

Latin derivatives of ars include the verb artīre ‘instruct in various skills’, from which ultimately English gets artisan [16]; and artificium, a compound formed with a variant of facere ‘do, make’, from which we get artificial [14].
=> arm, arthritis, article, artificial, artisan, inert
assist: assist: [15] Etymologically, assist means ‘stand by’. It comes, via French assister, from Latin assistere, a compound verb formed from the prefix ad- ‘near’ and sistere ‘stand’ (related to Latin stāre ‘stand’, from which English gets state, station, status, statue, etc). A remnant of this original meaning survives in the sense ‘be present without actually participating’, but the main use of the word in English has always been that which came from the metaphorical sense of the Latin verb – ‘help’.
=> state, station, statue, status
asthma: asthma: [14] The original idea contained in asthma is that of ‘breathing hard’. The Greek noun asthma was derived from the verb ázein ‘breathe hard’ (related to áein ‘blow’, from which English gets air). In its earliest form in English it was asma, reflecting its immediate source in medieval Latin, and though the Greek spelling was restored in the 16th century, the word’s pronunciation has for the most part stuck with asma.
=> air
attack: attack: [16] Attack reached English via French attaquer from Italian attaccare ‘attach, join’, which, like Old French atachier (source of English attach) was based on a hypothetical Germanic *stakōn (from which English gets stake). Phrases such as attaccare battaglia ‘join battle’ led to attaccare being used on its own to mean ‘attack’. Attach and attack are thus ‘doublets’ – that is, words with the same ultimate derivation but different meanings.
=> attach, stake
August: August: [OE] The month of August was named by the Romans after their emperor Augustus (63 BC–14 AD). His name was Caius Julius Caesar Octavian, but the Senate granted him the honorary title Augustus in 27 BC. This connoted ‘imperial majesty’, and was a specific use of the adjective augustus ‘magnificent, majestic’ (source of English august [17]); it may derive ultimately from the verb augēre ‘increase’ (from which English gets auction and augment).
=> auction, augment
axis: axis: [14] Axis is at the centre of a complex web of ‘turning’ words. Besides its immediate source, Latin axis, there were Greek áxōn, Sanskrit ákshas, and a hypothetical Germanic *akhsō which produced Old English eax ‘axle’ as well as modern German achse ‘axle, shaft’ and Dutch as; and there could well be a connection with Latin agere (source of English act, agent, etc) in the sense ‘drive’.

Also related is an unrecorded Latin form *acslā, which produced āla ‘wing’ (source of English aileron and aisle); its diminutive was axilla ‘armpit’, from which English gets the adjective axillary [17] and the botanical term axil [18].
=> aileron, aisle, axil
bandit: bandit: [16] Etymologically, a bandit is someone who has been ‘banished’ or outlawed. The word was borrowed from Italian bandito, which was a nominal use of the past participle of the verb bandire ‘ban’. The source of this was Vulgar Latin *bannīre, which was formed from the borrowed Germanic base *bann- ‘proclaim’ (from which English gets ban). Meanwhile, in Old French, bannīre had produced banir, whose lengthened stem form baniss- gave English banish [14].
=> ban, banish
bank: bank: [12] The various disparate meanings of modern English bank all come ultimately from the same source, Germanic *bangk-, but they have taken different routes to reach us. Earliest to arrive was ‘ridge, mound, bordering slope’, which came via a hypothetical Old Norse *banki. Then came ‘bench’ [13] (now obsolete except in the sense ‘series of rows or tiers’ – as in a typewriter’s bank of keys); this arrived from Old French banc, which was originally borrowed from Germanic *bangk- (also the source of English bench).

Finally came ‘moneylender’s counter’ [15], whose source was either French banque or Italian banca – both in any case deriving ultimately once again from Germanic *bangk-. The current sense, ‘place where money is kept’, developed in the 17th century. The derived bankrupt [16] comes originally from Italian banca rotta, literally ‘broken counter’ (rotta is related to English bereave and rupture); in early times a broken counter or bench was symbolic of an insolvent moneylender.

The diminutive of Old French banc was banquet ‘little bench’ (perhaps modelled on Italian banchetto), from which English gets banquet [15]. It has undergone a complete reversal in meaning over the centuries; originally it signified a ‘small snack eaten while seated on a bench (rather than at table)’.
=> bench
barley: barley: [OE] The Old English word for ‘barley’ was bære or bere. It came from an Indo- European base *bhar- which also gave Latin farīna ‘flour’ (from which English gets farinaceous [17]) and Old Norse farr ‘barley’. Barley (Old English bærlic) was in fact originally an adjective formed from this (like princely based on prince), and it was not until the early twelfth century that it came to be used as a noun. A barn [OE] was originally a building for storing barley. The Old English word ber(e)n was a compound formed from bere and ern or ærn ‘house’ (which may be related to English rest).
=> barn, farinaceous, farrago
barricade: barricade: [17] 12 May 1588 was known as la journée des barricades ‘the day of the barricades’, because in the course of disturbances in Paris during the Huguenot wars, large barrels (French barriques) filled with earth, cobblestones, etc were hauled into the street on that day to form barricades – and the term has stuck ever since. Barrique itself was borrowed from Spanish barrica ‘cask’, which was formed from the same stem as that from which English gets barrel [14]. It has been speculated that this was Vulgar Latin *barra ‘bar’, on the basis that barrels are made of ‘bars’ or ‘staves’.
=> bar, barrel
base: base: There are two distinct words base in English. Base meaning ‘lower part, foundation’ [14] came either via Old French base or was a direct anglicization of Latin basis (acquired by English in its unaltered form at around the same time). The Latin word in its turn came from Greek básis, which meant originally ‘step’ and came ultimately from the Indo-European base *gwm-, from which English gets come; the semantic progression involved was ‘going, stepping’ to ‘that on which one walks or stands’ to ‘pedestal’.

The derivative basement [18] is Italian in origin (Italian basamento means ‘base of a column’), but probably reached English via early modern Dutch basement ‘foundation’. Base meaning ‘low’ [14] comes via Old French bas from medieval Latin bassus ‘short, low’. The ultimate antecedents of this are uncertain, although some have suggested a connection with básson, the comparative form of Greek bathús ‘deep’.

The adjective bass is historically the same word as base, but since the 16th century has been distinguished from it by spelling.
=> basis; bass
baste: baste: There are two separate verbs baste in English, one meaning ‘sew loosely’ [14], the other ‘moisten roasting meat with fat’ [15]. The first comes from Old French bastir, which was acquired from a hypothetical Germanic *bastjan ‘join together with bast’. This was a derivative of *bastaz, from which English gets bast ‘plant fibre’ [OE]. The origin of the second is far more obscure. It may come from an earlier base, with the past form based being interpreted as the present tense or infinitive.
battery: battery: [16] The original meaning of battery in English was literally ‘hitting’, as in assault and battery. It came from Old French batterie, a derivative of batre, battre ‘beat’ (from which English also gets batter [14]). The ultimate source of this, and of English battle, was Latin battuere ‘beat’. The development of the word’s modern diversity of senses was via ‘bombardment by artillery’, to ‘unit of artillery’, to ‘electric cell’: it seems that this last meaning was inspired by the notion of ‘discharge of electricity’ rather than ‘connected series of cells’.
=> batter, battle
beacon: beacon: [OE] In Old English, bēacen meant simply ‘sign’; it did not develop its modern senses ‘signal fire’ and ‘lighthouse’ until the 14th century. Its source is West Germanic *baukna, from which English also gets beckon [OE].
=> beckon
beam: beam: [OE] In Old English times the word bēam (like modern German baum) meant ‘tree’ – a signification preserved in tree-names such as hornbeam and whitebeam. But already before the year 1000 the extended meanings we are familiar with today – ‘piece of timber’ and ‘ray of light’ – had started to develop. Related forms in other Germanic languages (which include, as well as German baum, Dutch boom, from which English gets boom ‘spar’ [16]) suggest a West Germanic ancestor *bauma, but beyond that all is obscure.
=> boom
beat: beat: [OE] Old English bēatan and the related Old Norse bauta may be traced back to a prehistoric Germanic *bautan. It has been conjectured that this could be connected with *fu-, the base of Latin confūtāre and refūtāre (source respectively of English confute [16] and refute [16]) and of Latin fustis ‘club’ (from which English gets fusty [14]).
=> beetle, confute, fusty, refute
bed: bed: [OE] Bed is common throughout the Germanic languages (German bett, Dutch bed), and comes from a prehistoric Germanic *bathjam. Already in Old English times the word meant both ‘place for sleeping’ and ‘area for growing plants’, and if the latter is primary, it could mean that the word comes ultimately from the Indo-European base *bhodh-, source of Latin fodere ‘dig’ (from which English gets fosse and fossil), and that the underlying notion of a bed was therefore originally of a sleeping place dug or scraped in the ground, like an animal’s lair.
=> fosse, fossil
beef: beef: [13] Like mutton, pork, and veal, beef was introduced by the Normans to provide a dainty alternative to the bare animal names ox, cow, etc when referring to their meat. Anglo-Norman and Old French boef or buef (which of course became modern French boeuf) came from Latin bov-, the stem of bōs ‘ox’, from which English gets bovine [19] and Bovril [19]. Bōs itself is actually related etymologically to cow. The compound beefeater ‘yeoman warder of the Tower of London’ was coined in the 17th century; it was originally a contemptuous term for a ‘well-fed servant’.
=> bovine, cow
beer: beer: [OE] Originally, beer was probably simply a general term for a ‘drink’: it seems to have come from late Latin biber ‘drink’, which was a derivative of the verb bibere ‘drink’ (from which English gets beverage, bibulous, imbibe, and possibly also bibber). The main Old English word for ‘beer’ was ale, and beer (Old English bēor) is not very common until the 15th century. A distinction between hopped beer and unhopped ale arose in the 16th century.
=> beverage, bibulous, imbibe
beetle: beetle: English has three separate words beetle. The commonest, beetle the insect, comes from Old English bitula, which was a derivative of the verb bītan ‘bite’: beetle hence means etymologically ‘the biter’. Beetle ‘hammer’, now largely restricted to various technical contexts, is also Old English: the earliest English form, bētel, goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *bautilaz, a derivative of the verb *bautan, from which English gets beat (the cognate Old Norse beytill meant ‘penis’).

The adjective beetle [14], as in ‘beetle brows’, and its related verb are of unknown origin, although it has been speculated that there is some connection with the tufted antennae of certain species of beetle, which may suggest eyebrows.
=> bite; beat
beg: beg: [OE] Beg first turns up in immediately recognizable form in the 13th century, as beggen, but it seems likely that it goes back ultimately to an Old English verb bedecian ‘beg’. This came from the Germanic base *beth-, from which English also gets bid.
=> bid
belfry: belfry: [13] Etymologically, belfry has nothing to do with bells; it was a chance similarity between the two words that led to belfry being used from the 15th century onwards for ‘bell-tower’. The original English form was berfrey, and it meant ‘movable seige-tower’. It came from Old French berfrei, which in turn was borrowed from a hypothetical Frankish *bergfrith, a compound whose two elements mean respectively ‘protect’ (English gets bargain, borough, borrow, and bury from the same root) and ‘peace, shelter’ (hence German friede ‘peace’); the underlying sense of the word is thus the rather tautological ‘protective shelter’.

A tendency to break down the symmetry between the two rs in the word led in the 15th century to the formation of belfrey in both English and French (l is phonetically close to r), and at around the same time we find the first reference to it meaning ‘bell-tower’, in Promptorium parvulorum 1440, an early English-Latin dictionary: ‘Bellfray, campanarium’.
=> affray, bargain, borrow, borough, bury, neighbour
betray: betray: [13] Betray is an English formation based on the Old French verb traïr ‘betray’, which came from Latin tradere ‘hand over, deliver up’ (originally a compound formed from trans- ‘across’ and dāre ‘give’). The noun formed from tradere was trāditiō, from which English gets, directly, tradition, and indirectly, via Old French and Anglo-Norman, the appropriate treason.
=> tradition, treason
beverage: beverage: [13] Beverage goes back to Latin bibere ‘drink’, from which English also gets imbibe [14], bibulous [17], beer, and probably bibber. From the verb was formed the Vulgar Latin noun *biberāticum ‘something to drink’, and hence, via Old French bevrage, English beverage. The colloquial abbreviation bevvy is at least 100 years old (it has been speculated, but never proved, that bevy ‘large group’ [15] comes from the same source).
=> beer, bevy, bib, bibulous, imbibe
bid: bid: [OE] Bid has a complicated history, for it comes from what were originally two completely distinct Old English verbs. The main one was biddan (past tense bæd) ‘ask, demand’, from which we get such modern English usages as ‘I bade him come in’. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *bithjan (source of German bitten ‘ask’), which was formed from the base *beth- (from which modern English gets bead).

But a contribution to the present nexus of meanings was also made by Old English bēodan (past tense bēad) ‘offer, proclaim’ (whence ‘bid at an auction’ and so on). This can be traced ultimately to an Indo- European base *bh(e)udh-, which gave Germanic *buth-, source also of German bieten ‘offer’ and perhaps of English beadle [13], originally ‘one who proclaims’.
=> bead, beadle