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arbour [arbour 词源字典]: arbour: [14] Despite its formal resemblance to, and semantic connections with, Latin arbor ‘tree’, arbour is not etymologically related to it. In fact, its nearest English relative is herb. When it first came into English it was erber, which meant ‘lawn’ or ‘herb/flower garden’. This was borrowed, via Anglo-Norman, from Old French erbier, a derivative of erbe ‘herb’.

This in turn goes back to Latin herba ‘grass, herb’ (in the 16th century a spelling with initial h was common in England). Gradually, it seems that the sense ‘grassy plot’ evolved to ‘separate, secluded nook in a garden’; at first, the characteristic feature of such shady retreats was their patch of grass, but their seclusion was achieved by surrounding trees or bushes, and eventually the criterion for an arbour shifted to ‘being shaded by trees’.

Training on a trellis soon followed, and the modern arbour as ‘bower’ was born. The shift from grass and herbaceous plants to trees no doubt prompted the alteration in spelling from erber to arbour, after Latin arbor; this happened in the 15th and 16th centuries.
=> herb[arbour etymology, arbour origin, 英语词源]
arise: arise: [OE] Arise is a compound verb with cognate forms in many other Germanic languages (Gothic, for instance, had urreisan). The prefix a- originally meant ‘away, out’, and hence was used as an intensive; rise comes from an unidentified Germanic source which some etymologists have connected with Latin rīvus ‘stream’ (source of English rivulet), on the basis of the notion of a stream ‘rising’ from a particular source.

The compound arise was in fact far commoner than the simple form rise in the Old English period, and it was only in early Middle English that rise began to take its place. This happened first in northern dialects, and may have been precipitated by Old Norse rísa. Today, it is only in the sense ‘come into existence’ that arise is commoner.
=> raise, rear, rise, rivulet
crisp: crisp: [OE] Historically, crisp means ‘curly’. It was borrowed into Old English from Latin crispus ‘curled’ (which was also the source of French crêpe, acquired by English as crape in the 17th century and then reborrowed in the original French form in the 19th century). The reason for the emergence of the word’s modern sense ‘brittle’, which happened in the early 16th century, is not clear, it may simply be that the sound of the word suggested brittleness.
=> crape, crêpe
crisscross: crisscross: [16] Crisscross is an alteration of Christscrosse, a term used from the 16th to 18th centuries for the figure of a cross (not specifically, as the name would seem to suggest, the crucifix). Gradually the original signification of the first syllable came to be lost, and the term fell into the pattern of reduplicated words (such as flipflop, singsong) in which a syllable is repeated with variation of the vowel. This may have contributed to the broadening of the word’s meaning to ‘pattern of repeated crossings’, which happened in the 19th century.
device: device: [13] A device is something which has been devised – which, etymologically speaking, amounts to ‘something which has been divided’. For ultimately devise and divide come from the same source. The noun device comes in the first instance from Old French devis ‘division, contrivance’ and latterly (in the 15th century) from Old French devise ‘plan’, both of which were derivatives of the verb deviser ‘divide, devise’ (source of English devise [13]).

This in turn came from Vulgar Latin *dīvisāre, a verb based on the past participial stem of Latin dīvidere, source of English divide. The semantic development by which ‘divide’ passed to ‘contrive’, presumably based on the notion that dividing something up and distributing it needs some planning, happened before the word reached English, and English device has never meant ‘division’.

The sense ‘simple machine’ essentially evolved in the 16th century.
=> devise, divide, individual, widow
flavour: flavour: [14] The form of the word flavour, and probably to some extent its meaning, owe a lot to savour. It was borrowed from Old French flaor, and originally meant ‘smell’ (the current association with ‘taste’ did not develop until the 17th century). The savour-influenced change from flaor to flavour seems to have happened somewhere in the crack between Old French and Middle English: there is no evidence of a -vspelling in Old French.

The Old French word itself came from Vulgar Latin *flātor ‘smell’, a derivative of Latin flātus ‘blowing, breeze, breath’ (possibly influenced by Latin foetor ‘foul smell’). Flātus in turn came from the past participle of flāre ‘blow’.
fright: fright: [OE] Prehistoric Germanic *furkhtaz, an adjective of unknown origin (not related to English fear), meant ‘afraid’. From it was derived a noun *furkhtīn, which was the basis of one of the main words for ‘fear’ among the ancient Germanic languages (not superseded as the chief English term by fear until the 13th century). Its modern descendants include German furcht and English fright (in which the original sequence ‘vowel plus r’ was reversed by the process known as metathesis – something which also happened to Middle Low German vruchte, from which Swedish fruktan and Danish frygt ‘fear’ were borrowed).
mouth: mouth: [OE] Mouth is part of a general Germanic family of ‘mouth’-words that go back to a prehistoric *munthaz: its modern relatives include German and Danish mund, Dutch mond, and Swedish mun. The loss of the nasal consonant is part of a general phenomenon that happened in primitive Old English (and also in Old Frisian and Old Saxon) whose effects can be seen also in goose (beside German gans) and tooth (beside German zahn). It is thought that *munthaz itself comes from the same Indo- European source as produced Latin mentum ‘chin’.
nickname: nickname: [14] A nickname is etymologically an ‘additional name’. The word was originally ekename, whose eke ‘addition’ was a derivative of the verb eke (as in ‘eke out’). But by the 15th century an ekename was becoming misinterpreted as a nekename – hence nickname (the same process produced newt [15] from ewt, ancestor of modern English eft ‘newt’, and the reverse happened to adder, apron, and umpire).
=> eke
notch: notch: [16] Not much is known for certain about the word notch, apart from the fact that its immediate source, Anglo-Norman noche, existed at least a couple of centuries before English acquired it. There may well be some connection with Old French oche ‘groove, notch’ (probable source of the English darts term oche ‘line where the dart-thrower stands’); the initial n could well have arisen by misdivision of a preceding indefinite article (as happened with nickname).
=> oche
porridge: porridge: [16] Porridge is a 16th-century alteration of pottage [13]. This originally denoted a stew of vegetables and sometimes meat, boiled to submission, but it gradually came to be applied to a gruel, of varying consistency, made of cereals, pulses, etc, and it was the sort made from oatmeal that eventually took over the word porridge. Its transformation from pottage took place via an intermediate poddage (the t pronounced /d/ as in American English), and the change to r is mirrored in such forms as geraway and geroff for getaway and get off.

The same thing happened in the case of porringer ‘dish’ [16], which came from an earlier pottinger. Pottage itself was acquired from Old French potage, which etymologically meant simply ‘something from a pot’ (it was a derivative of pot ‘pot’). English reborrowed it in the 16th century as potage ‘soup’.
=> pot, potage, pottage
puppy: puppy: [15] A puppy is etymologically a ‘toy’ dog. The word was borrowed from Old French popee ‘doll’, hence ‘toy’, which went back via Vulgar Latin *puppa (source of English puppet) to Latin pūpa ‘girl, doll’ (source of English pupa and pupil). The shift from ‘toy dog, lapdog’ to ‘young dog’ happened towards the end of the 16th century. (The Old and Middle English word for ‘puppy’, incidentally, was whelp.)
=> pupil
smite: smite: [OE] Old English smītan meant ‘smear’ (it came from a prehistoric Germanic *smītan, which also produced German schmeissen ‘throw’, and probably went back ultimately to the Indo-European base *smēi-, source of Greek smékhein ‘rub, cleanse’, from which English gets smegma [19]). Exactly the same odd semantic development from ‘smear’ to ‘hit’, presumably via an intervening ‘stroke’, happened in the case of strike.
=> smegma, smut
soon: soon: [OE] In Old English times, soon meant ‘straightaway’, but human nature being what it is, the tendency to procrastinate led over the centuries to a change in meaning to ‘after a short while’. (The same thing happened to anon, and is in the process of happening to directly.) The word itself comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *sǣnō, whose other descendants apart from soon have all but died out.
a- (1): in native (derived from Old English) words, it most commonly represents Old English an "on" (see a (2)), as in alive, asleep, abroad, afoot, etc., forming adjectives and adverbs from nouns; but it also can be Middle English of, as in anew, abreast (1590s); or a reduced form of Old English past participle prefix ge-, as in aware; or the Old English intensive a-, as in arise, awake, ashame, marking a verb as momentary, a single event. In words from Romanic languages, often it represents Latin ad- "to, at."
[I]t naturally happened that all these a- prefixes were at length confusedly lumped together in idea, and the resultant a- looked upon as vaguely intensive, rhetorical, euphonic, or even archaic, and wholly otiose. [OED]
Balkanize (v.): 1920, first used in reference to the Baltic states, on the model of what had happened in the Balkans; said to have been coined by English editor James Louis Garvin (1868-1947), but A.J. Toynbee (1922) credited it to "German Socialists" describing the results of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Either way, the reference is to the political situation in the Balkans c. 1878-1913, when the European section of the Ottoman Empire split up into small, warring nations. Balkanized and Balkanization both also are from 1920.
burglarize (v.): 1865, American English, from burglary + -ize. Related: Burglarized; burglarizing.
We see in a telegraphic despatch from across the boundary line that a store was "burglarized" a short time ago. We are sorry that any thing so dreadful should have happened to any of our inventive cousins. Truly the American language is "fearfully and wonderfully made." ["Upper Canada Law Journal," September 1865, p.228]

Burglarize, to, a term creeping into journalism. "The Yankeeisms donated, collided, and burglarized have been badly used up by an English magazine writer." (Southern Magazine, April, 1871.) The word has a dangerous rival in the shorter burgle. [Maximilian Schele De Vere, "Americanisms; The English of the New World," 1872]
caught: past tense and past participle of catch (v.), attested from 14c., predominant after c. 1800, replacing earlier catched. A rare instance of English strong verb with a French origin. This might have been by influence of Middle English lacchen (see latch (v.)), which also then meant "to catch" and was a synonym of catch (as their noun forms remain), and which then had past tense forms lahte, lauhte, laught. The influence happened before latch switched to its modern weak conjugation.
ermine (n.): late 12c., from Old French ermine (12c., Modern French hermine), used in reference to both the animal and the fur. Apparently the word is a convergence of Latin (mus) Armenius "Armenian (mouse)" -- ermines being abundant in Asia Minor -- and an unrelated Germanic word for "weasel" (represented by Old High German harmo "ermine, stoat, weasel," adj. harmin; Old Saxon harmo, Old English hearma "shrew," etc.) that happened to sound like it. OED splits the difference between competing theories. The fur, especially with the black of the tail inserted at regular intervals in the pure white of the winter coat, was used for the lining of official and ceremonial garments, in England especially judicial robes, hence figurative use from 18c. for "the judiciary." Related: Ermined.
fur (n.): late 14c. "trimming or lining of a garment" (implied c. 1300 in surname Furhode "fur hood"), probably from Old French forrer, fourrer "cover with fur, line (clothing)," in general "to cover, fill with," from fuerre "sheath, scabbard" (via notion of "covering"), from Frankish *fodr or another Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *fodram "sheath" (cognates: Old Frisian foder "coat lining," Old High German fotar "a lining," German Futter, Gothic fodr "sword sheath"), from PIE root *pa- "to protect, feed" (see food (n.)).

First applied c. 1400 to the hairy pelt of an animal, whether still on the animal or not. The Old French noun might have had the sense "hide, fur, pelt" (and thus might serve as the immediate source of the English noun), but this is not attested. Absent this, the sense transfer from the lining to the material that goes to make it probably happened in English. As an adjective from 1590s.
I'le make the fur Flie 'bout the eares of the old Cur. [Butler, "Hudibras," 1663]
Hadith (n.): "collected Islamic tradition, the body of traditions relating to Muhammad," 1817, from Arabic, literally "tradition," related to hadith "new, young," hadatha "it happened, occurred," and Hebrew hadash "new." Plural is Hadithat.
happen (v.): late 14c., happenen, "to come to pass, occur, come about, be the case," literally "occur by hap, have the (good or bad) fortune (to do, be, etc.);" extension (with verb-formative -n) of the more common hap (v.). Old English used gelimpan, gesceon, and Middle English also had befall. In Middle English fel it hap meant "it happened." Related: Happened; happening. Phrase happens to be as an assertive way to say "is" is from 1707.
hep (2): cry of those leading pogroms or attacks on Jews in Europe, 1819 in reference to Jewish explusions by mobs in various German cities in that year (later called the hep-hep riots); perhaps originally the cry of a goatherd, or of a hunter urging on dogs, but popularly said at the time to be acronym of Latin Hierosolyma Est Perdita "Jerusalem is destroyed," which, as H.E.P., supposedly was emblazoned on the banners of medieval recruiters for the Crusades who drew mobs that subsequently turned on local Jewish populations. That such things happened is true enough, but in the absence of evidence the story about the supposed acronym looks like folk etymology.
hindsight (n.): by 1841, "backsight of a firearm," from hind (adj.) + sight. Meaning "seeing what has happened" is attested by 1862, American English, (in proverbial "If our foresight was as good as our hindsight, it would be an easy matter to get rich"), probably a formation on the model of foresight.
memory (n.): mid-13c., "recollection (of someone or something); awareness, consciousness," also "fame, renown, reputation," from Anglo-French memorie (Old French memoire, 11c., "mind, memory, remembrance; memorial, record") and directly from Latin memoria "memory, remembrance, faculty of remembering," noun of quality from memor "mindful, remembering," from PIE root *(s)mer- (1) "to remember" (Sanskrit smarati "remembers," Avestan mimara "mindful;" Greek merimna "care, thought," mermeros "causing anxiety, mischievous, baneful;" Serbo-Croatian mariti "to care for;" Welsh marth "sadness, anxiety;" Old Norse Mimir, name of the giant who guards the Well of Wisdom; Old English gemimor "known," murnan "mourn, remember sorrowfully;" Dutch mijmeren "to ponder"). Meaning "faculty of remembering" is late 14c. in English.
I am grown old and my memory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it. [Mark Twain, "Autobiography"]
Computer sense, "device which stores information," is from 1946. Related: Memories.
meritocracy (n.): coined 1958 by British sociologist Michael Young (1915-2002) and used in title of his book, "The Rise of the Meritocracy"; from merit (n.) + -cracy. Related: Meritocratic.
[Young's book] imagined an elite that got its position not from ancestry, but from test scores and effort. For him, meritocracy was a negative term; his spoof was a warning about the negative consequences of assigning social status based on formal educational qualifications, and showed how excluding from leadership anyone who couldnât jump through the educational hoops would create a new form of discrimination. And thatâs exactly what has happened. [Lani Guinier, interview, "New York Times," Feb. 7, 2015]
mishappen (v.): early 14c., from mis- (1) + happen. Related: Mishappened; mishappening.
October: c.1050, from Latin October (mensis), from octo "eight," from PIE root *octo(u)- "eight" (see eight). Eighth month of the old Roman calendar (pre-46 B.C.E.), which began the year in March. For -ber see December. Replaced Old English winterfylleð. In Russian history, October Revolution (in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government) happened Nov. 7, but because Russia had not at that time adpoted the Gregorian calendar reform, this date was reckoned there (Old Style) as Oct. 25.
pedigree (n.): early 15c., "genealogical table or chart," from Anglo-French pe de gru, a variant of Old French pied de gru "foot of a crane," from Latin pedem accusative of pes "foot," from PIE root *ped- (1) "a foot" (see foot (n.)) + gruem (nominative grus) "crane," cognate with Greek geranos, Old English cran; see crane (n.)).

On old manuscripts, "descent" was indicated by a forked sign resembling the branching lines of a genealogical chart; the sign also happened to look like a bird's footprint. Form influenced in Middle English by association with degree. Meaning "ancestral line" is mid-15c.; of animals, c. 1600. Related: Pedigreed.
pre-atomic (adj.): "before the atomic age," 1914, in "World Set Free" -- H.G. Wells anticipating the word the future would use to look back at a time defined by events that hadn't yet happened in his day; from pre- + atomic.
shit (n.): Old English scitte "purging, diarrhea," from source of shit (v.). Sense of "excrement" dates from 1580s (Old English had scytel, Middle English shitel for "dung, excrement;" the usual 14c. noun seems to have been turd). Use for "obnoxious person" is since at least 1508; meaning "misfortune, trouble" is attested from 1937. Shit-faced "drunk" is 1960s student slang; shit list is from 1942. Up shit creek "in trouble" is from 1937 (compare salt river). To not give a shit "not care" is from 1922. Pessimistic expression Same shit different day attested by 1989. Shitticism is Robert Frost's word for scatological writing.
The expression [the shit hits the fan] is related to, and may well derive from, an old joke. A man in a crowded bar needed to defecate but couldn't find a bathroom, so he went upstairs and used a hole in the floor. Returning, he found everyone had gone except the bartender, who was cowering behind the bar. When the man asked what had happened, the bartender replied, 'Where were you when the shit hit the fan?' [Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words," 1989]
Thule: region or island at northernmost part of the world, Old English, from Latin, from Greek Thyle "land six days' sail north of Britain" (Strabo, quoting a lost portion of a work by Polybius, itself based on a lost account of a voyage to the north by 4c. B.C.E. geographer Pytheas). The identity of the place and the source of the name have sparked much speculation; Polybius doubted the whole thing, and since Roman times the name has been used in a transferred sense of "extreme limits of travel" (Ultima Thule).
The barbarians showed us where the sun set. For it happened in those places that the night was extremely short, lasting only two or three hours; and the sun sunk under the horizon, after a short interval reappeared at his rising." [Pytheas]
The name was given to a trading post in Greenland in 1910, site of a U.S. air base in World War II.
toga (n.): c. 1600, from Latin toga "cloak or mantle," from PIE *tog-a- "covering," from root *(s)teg- "to cover" (see stegosaurus). The outer garment of a Roman citizen in time of peace.
The toga as the Roman national dress was allowed to be worn by free citizens only. A stranger not in full possession of the rights of a Roman citizen could not venture to appear in it. Even banished Romans were in imperial times precluded from wearing it. The appearance in public in a foreign dress was considered as contempt of the majesty of the Roman people. Even boys appeared in the toga, called, owing to the purple edge attached to it (a custom adopted from the Etruscans) toga praetexta. On completing his sixteenth, afterward his fifteenth, year (tirocinium fori), the boy exchanged the toga praetexta for the toga virilis, pura, or libera--a white cloak without the purple edge. Roman ladies (for these also wore the toga) abandoned the purple edge on being married. [Guhl & Koner, "The Life of the Greeks and Romans," transl. Francis Hueffer, 1876]
Breeches, like the word for them (Latin bracae) were alien to the Romans, being the dress of Persians, Germans, and Gauls, so that bracatus "wearing breeches" was a term in Roman geography meaning "north of the Alps." College fraternity toga party was re-popularized by movie "Animal House" (1978), but this is set in 1962 and the custom seems to date from at least the mid-1950s.
Down on Prospect Street, Campus Club held a toga party, at which everyone wore togas. Charter held a come-as-you-are party, at which everyone wore what they happened to have on, and Cloister held a party called "A Night in Tahiti," at which we'd hate to guess what everyone wore. The borough police reported that only one false alarm was turned in. ["Princeton Alumni Weekly," March 19, 1954]