quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- huckster



[huckster 词源字典] - huckster: [12] The Low German dialects of northern Germany appear to have had in prehistoric times a root *huk- which denoted ‘sell’. It has been suggested that this was the source of English hawker ‘peddler’, and with the alternative agent suffix -ster (which originally signified ‘female doer’, but in Low German was used for males) it produced huckster – perhaps borrowed from Middle Dutch hokester.
=> hawk[huckster etymology, huckster origin, 英语词源] - chuck (v.1)




- "to throw," 1590s, variant of chock "give a blow under the chin" (1580s), possibly from French choquer "to shock, strike against," imitative (see shock (n.1)). Related: Chucked; chucking.
- chuck (n.1)




- "piece of wood or meat," 1670s, probably a variant of chock (n.) "block." "Chock and chuck appear to have been originally variants of the same word, which are now somewhat differentiated" [OED]. Specifically of shoulder meat from early 18c. American English chuck wagon (1880) is from the meat sense.
Chock and Chuck, Are low terms, very frequently used before full,--as the coach was chock full of passengers. The house was chuck full. [Daniel Powers, "A Grammar on an Entirely New System," West Brookfield, 1845]
- chuck (n.2)




- "slight blow under the chin," 1610s, from chuck (v.1). Meaning "a toss, a throw" is from 1862. Related: Chucked; chucking.
- chuckle (v.)




- 1590s, frequentative of Middle English chukken "make a clucking noise" (late 14c.), of echoic origin. It originally meant "noisy laughter." Related: Chuckled; chuckling.
- chuckle (n.)




- 1754, from chuckle (v.).
- chucklehead (n.)




- also chuckle-head, "blockhead, dolt," (18c.), with head (n.), the first element perhaps from chuck (n.1).
- huckleberry (n.)




- 1660s, American English, probably an alteration of Middle English hurtilbery "whortleberry" (15c.), from Old English horte "whortleberry." Technically the fruit and plant of Gaylussacia, but also widely colloquially applied to the closely related blueberry (Vaccinium). Slang meaning "person of little consequence" is attested from 1835.
- huckster (n.)




- c. 1200, "petty merchant, peddler" (often contemptuous), from Middle Dutch hokester "peddler," from hoken "to peddle" (see hawk (v.1)) + agent suffix -ster (which was typically feminine in English, but not in Low German). Specific sense of "advertising salesman" is from 1946 novel by Frederick Wakeman. As a verb, from 1590s. Related: Huckstered; huckstering.
- shuck (v.)




- "to remove the shucks from," 1819, from or related to shuck (n.). Related: Shucked; shucking.
Many extended senses are from the notion of "stripping" an ear of corn, or from the capers associated with husking frolics; such as "to strip (off) one's clothes" (1848) and "to deceive, swindle, cheat, fool" (1959); phrase shucking and jiving "fooling, deceiving" is suggested from 1966, in U.S. black English, but compare shuck (v.) a slang term among "cool musicians" for "to improvise chords, especially to a piece of music one does not know" (1957), and shuck (n.) "a theft or fraud," in use by 1950s among U.S. blacks.
[B]lack senses probably fr[om] the fact that black slaves sang and shouted gleefully during corn-shucking season, and this behavior, along with lying and teasing, became a part of the protective and evasive behavior normally adopted towards white people in "traditional" race relations; the sense of "swindle" is perhaps related to the mid-1800s term to be shucked out, "be defeated, be denied victory," which suggests that the notion of stripping someone as an ear of corn is stripped may be basic in the semantics. ["Dictionary of American Slang"]
- shuck (n.)




- "husk, pod, shell," 1670s, of unknown origin. Compare shuck (v.). Later used in reference to the shells of oysters and clams (1872). Figurative as a type of something worthless from 1836.
- shucks (interj.)




- expression of indifference, 1847, from shuck (n.) in the secondary sense "something valueless" (i.e. not worth shucks, attested in a separate source from 1847).
- upchuck (v.)




- "to vomit," by 1960, American English slang, from up (adv.) + chuck (v.) "to throw."
- woodchuck (n.)




- 1670s, alteration (influenced by wood (n.)) of Cree (Algonquian) otchek or Ojibwa otchig, "marten," the name subsequently transferred to the groundhog.