quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- wheel



[wheel 词源字典] - wheel: [OE] A wheel is etymologically simply something that ‘goes round’. It is a member of a large family of words that goes back to Indo- European *qweqwlo-, which was derived from *qwelo- ‘go round’. Other members include Greek kúklos ‘circle’ (source of English cycle), Sanskrit cakrá- ‘circle, wheel’ (source of English chukker), Serbo-Croat and Czech kolo ‘wheel’, and Russian koleso ‘wheel’. Its prehistoric Germanic descendant was *khwekhula, which evolved into Dutch wiel, Swedish and Danish hjul, and English wheel.
=> chukker, cycle, encyclopedia[wheel etymology, wheel origin, 英语词源] - limb (n.2)




- late 14c., "edge of a quadrant or other instrument," from Latin limbus "border, hem, fringe, edge," of uncertain origin. Klein suggests cognate with Sanskrit lambate "hangs down," and English limp. But Tucker writes that "the sense appears to be that of something which twists, goes round, or binds ... not of something which hangs loose," and suggests cognates in Lithuanian linta "ribbon," Old Norse linnr "whether." Astronomical sense of "edge of the disk of a heavenly body" first attested 1670s.
- ring (n.1)




- "circular band," Old English hring "small circlet, especially one of metal for wearing on the finger or as part of a mail coat; anything circular," from Proto-Germanic *hringaz "something curved, circle" (cognates: Old Norse hringr, Old Frisian hring, Danish, Swedish, Dutch ring, Old High German hring, German Ring), from PIE *(s)kregh- nasalized form of (s)kregh-, from root *(s)ker- (3) "to turn, bend," with wide-ranging derivative senses (cognates: Latin curvus "bent, curved," crispus "curly;" Old Church Slavonic kragu "circle," and perhaps Greek kirkos "ring," koronos "curved").
Other Old English senses were "circular group of persons," also "horizon." Meaning "place for prize fight and wrestling bouts" (early 14c.) is from the space in a circle of bystanders in the midst of which such contests once were held, "... a circle formed for boxers, wrestlers, and cudgel players, by a man styled Vinegar; who, with his hat before his eyes, goes round the circle, striking at random with his whip to prevent the populace from crowding in" [Grose, 1785]. Meaning "combination of interested persons" is from 1829. Of trees, from 1670s; fairy ring is from 1620s. Ring finger is Old English hringfingr, a compound found in other Germanic languages. To run rings round (someone) "be superior to" is from 1891.
Nursery rhyme ring a ring a rosie is attested in an American form (with a different ending) from c. 1790. "The belief that the rhyme originated with the Great Plague is now almost universal, but has no evidence to support it and is almost certainly nonsense" ["Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore"]. This proposal of connection dates only to the late 1960s.