英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

hobby [hobby 词源字典]: hobby: Hobby in the sense ‘pastime’ is short for hobbyhorse. This originated in the 16th century as a term for the figure of a horse used in morris dances: the element hobby, used since the 14th century for a ‘small horse’, was derived from Hob, a pet form of the man’s name Robert or Robin which survives also in hobgoblin [16]. From the morris-dance hobbyhorse was descended the toy hobbyhorse, a stick with a horse’s head on top; and the notion of ‘riding a hobbyhorse’, which could not actually take you anywhere, passed metaphorically into ‘doing something only for amusement’ – hence the meaning ‘pastime’, first recorded for hobbyhorse in the 17th century and for the shortened hobby in the early 19th century. Hobby ‘bird of prey’ [15] comes from Old French hobet, a diminutive form of hobe ‘small bird of prey’, whose origins are not known.
=> hobbyhorse, hobgoblin[hobby etymology, hobby origin, 英语词源]
figurehead (n.): also figure-head, 1765, from figure (n.) + head (n.). The ornament on the projecting part of the head of a ship, immediately under the bowsprit; sense of "leader without real authority" is first attested 1868.
You may say that the king is still head of the State, and that this is a sufficient basis for loyal feeling; certainly, if he were really so, and not a mere ornamented figure-head on the ship of state. [James Hadley, "Essays Philological and Critical," London, 1873]
leap year (n.): late 14c., from leap (v.) + year. So called from its causing fixed festival days, which normally advance one weekday per year, to "leap" ahead one day in the week.
two-step (n.): dance style, 1893, from two + step (n.); so called for the time signature of the music (as distinguished from the three-step waltz). But as the positions taken by the dancers involved direct contact, it was highly scandalous in its day and enormously popular.
A certain Division of an Auxiliary gave a dance not long since. I went and looked on. What did they dance? Two-step, two-step and two-step. How did they dance? When we used to waltz, we clasped arms easily, took a nice, respectable position, and danced in a poetry of motion. Now, girls, how do you two-step? In nine cases out of ten the dear girl reposes her head on the young man's shoulder, or else their faces press each other. He presses her to his breast as closely as possible, and actually carries her around. Disgraceful? I should say so. Do you wonder at the ministers preaching on dancing as a sin, when it looks like this to a woman like myself who believes in dancing and has danced all her life? Mothers, as you love your girls, forbid them to dance after this manner. [letter in the ladies' section of "Locomotive Engineers' Monthly Journal," March 1898]

To the Two Step may be accredited, serious injury to the Waltz, awkward and immodest positions assumed in round dancing, also as being a prominent factor in overcrowding the profession and causing a general depression in the business of the legitimate Master of Dancing. ["The Director," March 1898]
wacky (adj.): "crazy, eccentric," 1935, variant of whacky (n.) "fool," late 1800s British slang, probably ultimately from whack "a blow, stroke," from the notion of being whacked on the head one too many times.