quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- grovel



[grovel 词源字典] - grovel: [16] Old and Middle English had a suffix -ling, used for making adverbs denoting direction or condition. Few survive, and of those that do, most have had their -ling changed to the more logical-sounding -long (headlong and sidelong, for instance, used to be headling and sideling; darkling still hangs on – just – unchanged).
Among them was grovelling, an adverb meaning ‘face downwards’ based on the phrase on grufe ‘on the face or stomach’, which in turn was a partial translation of Old Norse á grúfu, literally ‘on proneness’ (grúfu may be related to English creep). It was not long before grovelling came to be regarded as a present participle, and the new verb grovel was coined from it.
=> creep[grovel etymology, grovel origin, 英语词源] - hinge




- hinge: [13] Hinge is generally agreed to be related to the verb hang, and to mean etymologically ‘something on which a door hangs’, but the circumstances of its formation are obscure (as indeed are the reasons for its rhyming with singe, a 16th-century development; before that it rhymed with sing).
=> hang - pendulum




- pendulum: [17] A pendulum is etymologically simply something that ‘hangs’. It is a noun use of the neuter form of the Latin adjective pendulus ‘hanging’ (source of English pendulous [18]). This was a derivative of the verb pendēre ‘hang’, which has contributed a wide range of words to English, among them penchant [17], pendant [14], pendent [15], pending [17], and penthouse, and derived forms such as append [15], appendix [16], depend, impend [16], perpendicular [14], and suspend.
=> append, appendix, depend, impend, penchant, pendant, pendent, penthouse, perpendicular, suspend - trapeze




- trapeze: [19] Trapeze and quadruped are ultimately the same word: both mean etymologically ‘four feet’. Trapeze comes via French trapèze and late Latin trapezium (source of English trapezium [16]) from Greek trapézion ‘small table’. This was a diminutive form of trápeza ‘table’, literally ‘four-footed’ thing, a compound noun formed from tetra- ‘four’ and peza ‘foot’ (a relative of English foot).
The Greek mathematician Euclid used trapézion for a ‘table’-shaped geometrical figure, a quadrilateral. The application to the piece of gymnastic equipment, which evolved in French, alludes to the quadrilateral shape formed by the trapeze’s ropes and crossbar and the roof or other support it hangs from.
=> foot, quadruped - flap (n.)




- mid-14c., flappe "a blow, slap, buffet," probably imitative of the sound of striking. Sense of "device for slapping or striking" is from early 15c. Meaning "something that hangs down" is first recorded 1520s, probably from flap (v.). Sense of "motion or noise like a bird's wing" is 1774; meaning "disturbance, noisy tumult" is 1916, British slang.
- hang (n.)




- late 15c., "a sling," from hang (v.). Meaning "a curtain" is from c. 1500; that of "the way in which a thing (especially cloth) hangs" is from 1797. To get the hang of (something) "become capable" is from 1834, American English, perhaps originally in reference to a certain tool or feat, but, if so, its origin has been forgotten. It doesn't seem to have been originally associated with drapery or any other special use of hang; the connecting notion might be "general bent or tendency."
'To get the hang of a thing,' is to get the knack, or habitual facility of doing it well. A low expression frequently heard among us. In the Craven Dialect of England is the word hank, a habit; from which this word hang may perhaps be derived. [John Russell Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," New York, 1848]
- hanger (n.)




- early 15c., "one who hangs (something)," especially "executioner," later also "one who chooses pictures for an exhibition;" agent noun from hang (v.). Meaning "something that is suspended" is late 15c. Meaning "thing from which something is hung" is from 1690s. Meaning "loop or strap in a garment for hanging on a peg" is from 1680s; of wood or wire coat or dress hangers from 1873. Hanger-on is from 1540s.
- hinge (n.)




- c. 1300, "the axis of the earth;" late 14c. as "movable joint of a gate or door," not found in Old English, cognate with Middle Dutch henghe "hook, handle," Middle Low German henge "hinge," from Proto-Germanic *hanhan (transitive), *hangen (intransitive), from PIE *konk- "to hang" (see hang (v.)). The notion is the thing from which a door hangs.
- lavalier (n.)




- kind of ornament that hangs around the neck, from French lavallière, a kind of tie, after Louise Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière, Duchesse de La Vallière (1644-1710), mistress of Louis XIV from 1661-1667.
- 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.
- limp (v.)




- 1560s, of unknown origin, perhaps related to Middle English lympen "to fall short" (c. 1400), which is probably from Old English lemphealt "halting, lame, limping," which has a lone cognate in the rare Middle High German limphin, and perhaps is from a PIE root meaning "slack, loose, to hang down" (cognates: Sanskrit lambate "hangs down," Middle High German lampen "to hang down"). Related: Limped; limping. As a noun, 1818, from the verb.
- muumuu (n.)




- also muu-muu, 1923, from Hawaiian mu'u mu'u, literally "cut off," name given to the local adaptation of the dresses given to Island women by early 19c. Christian missionaries "in the early days when a few flowers sufficed for a garment" [Don Blanding, "Hula Moons," 1930]. So called because the native style hangs from the shoulder and omits the high neck and the train.
- Stonehenge (n.)




- early 12c., Stanenges, literally "stone gallows," perhaps so called from fancied resemblance to old-style gallows with two posts, with the second element related to the verb hang. Some antiquarians suggest the notion may be of "supported in the air, that which hangs in the air" (compare henge-clif for Latin præruptum), in reference to the lintel stones, but the order of the elements and the inflection is against this. An ancient name for it was the Giant's Dance.
- uxorial (adj.)




- "of or pertaining to a wife," 1778, from Latin uxoris (see uxorious) + -al (1). Sometimes is used in the sense of uxorius.
We still say that a husband hangs out the broom when his wife goes from home for a short time; and on such occasions a broom besom has been exhibited as a signal that the house was freed from uxorial restraint, and where the master might be considered as a temporary bachelor. [Samuel Johnson and George Steevens, notes to "The Tempest," 1778]
- wharf (n.)




- late Old English hwearf "shore, bank where ships can tie up," earlier "dam, embankment," from Proto-Germanic *hwarfaz (cognates: Middle Low German werf "mole, dam, wharf," German Werft "shipyard, dockyard"); related to Old English hwearfian "to turn," perhaps in a sense implying "busy activity," from PIE root *kwerp- "to turn, revolve" (cognates: Old Norse hverfa "to turn round," German werben "to enlist, solicit, court, woo," Gothic hvairban "to wander," Greek kartos "wrist," Sanskrit surpam "winnowing fan"). Wharf rat is from 1812 as "type of rat common on ships and docks;" extended sense "person who hangs around docks" is recorded from 1836.