havocyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[havoc 词源字典]
havoc: [15] The ancestry of havoc is a mystery, but it seems originally to have been an exclamation, probably Germanic, used as a signal to begin plundering. This was adopted into Old French as havot, which was used in the phrase crier havot ‘shout ‘havot’,’ hence ‘let loose destruction and plunder’. Havot became altered in Anglo-Norman to havok, the form in which English adopted it; and in due course cry havoc gave rise to the independent use of havoc as ‘destruction, devastation’.
[havoc etymology, havoc origin, 英语词源]
havoc (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
early 15c., from the expression cry havoc "give the signal to pillage" (Anglo-French crier havok, late 14c.). Havok, the signal to soldiers to seize plunder, is from Old French havot "pillaging, looting" (in crier havot), which is related to haver "to seize, grasp," hef "hook," probably from a Germanic source (see hawk (n.)), or from Latin habere "to have, possess." General sense of "devastation" first recorded late 15c.