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chair [chair 词源字典]: chair: [13] Chair comes ultimately from Greek kathédrā ‘seat’ (source also of cathedral, of course), which was a compound originally meaning literally ‘something for sitting down on’ – it was formed from katá- ‘down’ and *hed- ‘sit’. It produced Latin cathedra, which in Old French became chaiere, the source of the English word.

The use of chair specifically for the seat occupied by someone presiding at a meeting dates from the mid 17th century, and its metaphorical extension to the person sitting in it, as symbolizing his or her office – as in ‘address one’s remarks to the chair’ – is virtually contemporary (‘The Chair behaves himself like a Busby amongst so many schoolboys’, Thomas Burton’s Diary, 23 March 1658); but its use as a synonym for chairperson, to avoid a distinction on grounds of sex, is a late 20th-century development.
=> cathedral[chair etymology, chair origin, 英语词源]
temerity: temerity: [15] Someone who behaves with temerity is etymologically acting in the ‘dark’. The word was adapted from Latin temeritās ‘rashness’, a derivative of temere ‘blindly’, hence ‘rashly’. This in turn was formed from an unrecorded *temus ‘darkness’, a relative of tenebrae ‘darkness’, and hence originally denoted ‘acting in the dark, so that one cannot see’.
tomboy: tomboy: [16] Tomboy originally denoted a ‘rude or boisterous boy’, but before the end of the 16th century it was being applied to a ‘girl who behaves like a boisterous boy’. Tom (the familiar form of Thomas) is presumably being used to denote ‘maleness’ (here ‘typical male aggressiveness’).
shaver (n.): "one who shaves," early 15c., agent noun from shave (v.); sense of "fellow, chap" is slang from 1590s. Meaning "shaving tool" is from 1550s. Mad shaver (1610s) was 17c. slang for "a swashbuckler, roisterer."
swab (n.): 1650s, "mop made of rope or yarn," from swabber (c. 1600) "mop for cleaning a ship's deck," from Dutch zwabber, akin to West Frisian swabber "mop," from Proto-Germanic *swabb-, perhaps of imitative origin, denoting back-and-forth motion, especially in liquid.

Non-nautical meaning "anything used for mopping up" is from 1787; as "cloth or sponge on a handle to cleanse the mouth, etc.," from 1854. Slang meaning "a sailor" first attested 1798, short for swabber "member of a ship's crew assigned to swab decks" (1590s), which by c. 1600 was being used in a broader sense of "one who behaves like a low-ranking sailor, one fit only to use a swab."
ugly (adj.): mid-13c., uglike "frightful or horrible in appearance," from a Scandinavian source, such as Old Norse uggligr "dreadful, fearful," from uggr "fear, apprehension, dread" (perhaps related to agg "strife, hate") + -ligr "-like" (see -ly (1)). Meaning softened to "very unpleasant to look at" late 14c. Extended sense of "morally offensive" is attested from c. 1300; that of "ill-tempered" is from 1680s.

Among words for this concept, ugly is unusual in being formed from a root for "fear, dread." More common is a compound meaning "ill-shaped" (such as Greek dyseides, Latin deformis, Irish dochrud, Sanskrit ku-rupa). Another Germanic group has a root sense of "hate, sorrow" (see loath). Ugly duckling (1877) is from the story by Hans Christian Andersen, first translated from Danish to English 1846. Ugly American "U.S. citizen who behaves offensively abroad" is first recorded 1958 as a book title.
wolverine (n.): carnivorous mammal, 1610s, alteration of wolvering (1570s), of uncertain origin, possibly from wolv-, inflectional stem of wolf (n.); or perhaps from wolver "one who behaves like a wolf" (1590s).
ladette: "A young woman who behaves in a boisterously assertive or crude manner and engages in heavy drinking sessions", 1990s: from lad + -ette.
superorganism: "A group or association of organisms which behaves in some respect like a single organism; a complex system consisting of a large number of organisms which itself behaves as if it were an organic whole, as human society, an ecosystem, etc", Late 19th cent.; earliest use found in William Edward Hearn (1826–1888), legal and economic writer.
scallywag: "A person, typically a child, who behaves badly but in an amusingly mischievous rather than harmful way; a rascal", Mid 19th century: of unknown origin.