英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

afford [afford 词源字典]: afford: [OE] This verb originally meant ‘accomplish, fulfil’. In Old English times it was geforthian, formed from the prefix ge-, denoting completion of an action, and forthian ‘advance towards completion’ or literally ‘further’ (from the adverb forth). The notion of accomplishing something or managing something gradually led, by the 15th century, to the idea of being able to do something because one has enough money.

Meanwhile, the original ge- prefix, which by Middle English times had become i- (iforthien), had been transformed into af- under the influence of the many Latin-based words beginning in aff-, and in the 16th century spellings with final d in place of th start to appear.
=> forth[afford etymology, afford origin, 英语词源]
almost: almost: [OE] Almost is simply a combination of all and most. In Anglo-Saxon times, and up until the 17th century, it meant ‘mostly all’ or ‘nearly all’ (thus one could say ‘My best friends are almost men’, meaning most of them are men); but already by the 13th century the modern sense ‘nearly, not quite’ was well in place.
=> all, most
appreciate: appreciate: [17] Like appraise, appreciate originally comes from the notion of setting a price on something. It comes from late Latin appretiāre, a compound verb formed from ad- ‘to’ and pretium ‘price’. The neutral sense of ‘estimating worth’ was already accompanied by the more positive ‘esteem highly’ when the word began to be used in English, and by the late 18th century the meaning ‘rise in value’ (apparently an American development) was well in place.
=> appraise, price
buoy: buoy: [13] Buoy is of disputed origin, as to both its immediate source and its ultimate derivation. One school of thought holds that English borrowed it directly from Old French boie ‘chain’, while another views Middle Dutch boeye as an intermediate stage. Again some etymologists maintain that its beginnings were amongst the Germanic languages, and have connected it with English beacon, while others would trace it via Latin boia ‘strap’ to Greek boeiai ‘ox-leather straps’, a derivative of bous ‘ox’ (which is related to English cow).

The meaning of Old French boie favours the latter explanation, the semantic link being that buoys are held in place by chains. Buoyant [16] comes from Spanish boyante, the present participle of boyar ‘float’, which was derived from boya ‘buoy’, a borrowing from Old French boie.
consist: consist: [16] Latin consistere meant originally ‘stand still, be firmly in place’. It was a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and sistere ‘place’ (a relative of Latin stāre, which entered into a parallel compound to form constāre ‘stand firm’, source of English constant [14]). The concrete concept of ‘standing firm’ passed into the more abstract ‘exist’, and hence ‘have a particular kind of existence, have particular inherent qualities’. By the time English borrowed the verb it had come to mean ‘be composed of’.
=> constant, constitute
den: den: [OE] Related forms such as German tenne ‘threshing floor’ and possibly Greek thenar ‘palm of the hand’ suggest that the underlying meaning of den may be ‘flat area’. Old English denn denoted ‘wild animal’s lair’, perhaps with reference to animals’ flattening an area of vegetation to form a sleeping place. Dean [OE], a word for ‘valley’ now surviving only in placenames, comes from the same source.
for: for: [OE] For comes from a prehistoric Germanic *fora, which denoted ‘before’ – both ‘before’ in time and ‘in front’ in place. For itself meant ‘before’ in the Old English period, and the same notion is preserved in related forms such as first, fore, foremost, former, from, and of course before. Germanic *fora itself goes back to Indo- European *pr, source also of Latin prae ‘before’, pro ‘for’, and primus ‘first’ (whence English premier, primary, etc), Greek pará ‘by, past’, pró ‘before’, and protos ‘first’ (whence English protocol, prototype, etc). and English forth and further.
=> before, first, fore, former, forth, from, further, premier, primary
home: home: [OE] Old English hām meant ‘place where one lives, house, village’. The last of these survives only in place-names (such as Birmingham, Fulham), and it is the ‘house, abode’ sense that has come through into modern English home. Its ancestor was prehistoric Germanic *khaim-, which also produced German heim, Dutch heem, Swedish hem, and Danish hjem. It is not clear where this came from, although some have connected it with Latin civis ‘citizen’.
image: image: [13] Latin imāgō meant a ‘likeness of something’ (it probably came from the same source as imitate). It subsequently developed a range of secondary senses, such as ‘echo’ and ‘ghost’, which have not survived the journey via Old French into English, but the central ‘likeness’ remains in place. Derived from the noun in Latin was the verb imāginārī ‘form an image of in one’s mind, picture to oneself’, which became English imagine [14]. (Latin imāgō, incidentally, was used in the 1760s by the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus for an ‘adult insect’ – based on the Latin sense ‘natural shape’, the idea being that the insect had achieved its final perfect form after various pupal forms – and English took the term over at the end of the 18th century.)
=> imitate
instead: instead: [13] Instead is the English end of a chain of loan translations that goes back to Latin in locō (in loan translations, the individual components of a foreign word or expression are translated into their equivalents in the borrowing language, and then reassembled). The Latin phrase meant literally ‘in place (of)’, and this was translated into Old French as en lieu de.

Middle English rendered the French expression in turn as in stead of or in the stead of (stead ‘place’, now obsolete except in certain fixed compounds and expressions, comes ultimately from the same Indo-European source as stand, station, etc). It began to be written as one word towards the end of the 16th century.
=> stand, station, statue, stead
maverick: maverick: [19] Originally, in the American West, a maverick was an unbranded calf that had become separated from its mother and its herd (by convention, any farmer or stockman who came upon such a calf could add it to his herd and brand it as his own). The name probably comes from Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803– 70), a Texas cattle-owner (and ancestor of the Maury Maverick who coined the word gobbledegook) who did not brand the calves of one of his herds. The familiar modern metaphorical application to an awkwardly independent-minded person was in place before the end of the 19th century.
moss: moss: [OE] The prehistoric Germanic ancestor of moss was *musam. This had two distinct meanings: ‘swamp’ and ‘moss’. It is not altogether clear which was primary, but it seems more probable than not that ‘moss’ (a plant which frequents damp places) was derived from ‘swamp’. The only meaning recorded for its Old English descendant mos was ‘swamp’ (which survives in place-names), but no doubt ‘moss’ (not evidenced before the 14th century) was current too.

Words from the same ultimate source to have found their way into English include mire [14] (borrowed from Old Norse mýrr ‘swamp’), mousse [19] (borrowed from French, which got it from Middle Low German mos ‘moss’), and litmus [16] (whose Old Norse source litmosi meant literally ‘dye-moss’ – litmus is a dye extracted from lichens).
=> litmus, mire, mousse
nose: nose: [OE] Nose is the English member of a widespread family of ‘nose’-words that trace their ancestry back to Indo-European *nas-. This has produced Latin nāsus (source of English nasal [17]), Sanskrit nás, Lithuanian nósis, and Russian, Polish, Czech, and Serbo-Croat nos. Its Germanic descendant has differentiated into German nase, Dutch neus, Swedish näsa, Danish næse, and English nose. Nozzle [17] and nuzzle [15] are probably derived from nose, and ness ‘promontory, headland’ [OE] (now encountered only in place-names) is related to it.
=> nasal, ness, nostril, nozzle, nuzzle
quilt: quilt: [13] The ultimate source of quilt is Latin culcita ‘mattress’, which passed into English via Old French cuilte. Its function gradually evolved from that of a mattress for lying on to that of a coverlet for lying under. A long-standing characteristic of such quilts is that their stuffing is held in place by cross-stitching. This does not emerge as a distinct meaning of the verb quilt (‘sew padded cloth in a crisscross pattern’) until the mid-16th century, but it is reflected in the medieval Latin term culcita puncta ‘pricked mattress’ – that is, a mattress that has been stitched.

This passed into English via Old French as counterpoint, which was subsequently altered, by association with pane ‘panel’, to counterpane [17].
=> counterpane
remain: remain: [14] Latin manēre meant ‘stay’ (it has given English manor, mansion, permanent [15], etc). Combination with the prefix re- ‘back, in place’ produced remanēre ‘stay behind, remain’, which passed into English via Old French remanoir. Its present participle gave English remnant [14]. A variant of remanoir was remaindre, which is the source of English remainder [15].
=> manor, mansion, permanent, remnant
reside: reside: [15] The -side of reside has no connection with English side. It comes from Latin sedēre ‘settle’ (source of English sedentary, session, etc and related to sit). Combination with the prefix re- ‘back’ produced residēre ‘settle back, remain in place, rest’, which passed into English via its present participle as resident ‘settling permanently in a place’ [14]. Reside is either a back-formation from this or a borrowing from French résider.

The past participle of residēre was residuus, whose neuter form residuum was used as a noun meaning ‘that which settles back’, hence ‘that which is left behind’. It passed into English via Old French as residue [14].
=> residue, sedentary, session, sit
stead: stead: [OE] Stead ‘place’ comes from a prehistoric Germanic *stadiz, which also produced German statt ‘place’ and stadt ‘town’. This in turn went back to Indo-European *stətís, a derivative of the base *stə -, *stā- ‘stand’, which also produced English stand and Latin stāre ‘stand’ (source of English state, statue, etc). The expression in the stead of ‘in place of’, and its lexicalized form instead, originated in the 13th century, modelled on Old French en lieu de.
=> stand, state, statue, steady
town: town: [OE] The ancestral meaning of town is ‘enclosed place’ – amongst its relatives are German zaun ‘hedge, fence’ and Old Irish dūn ‘fort, camp, fortified place’. Its Old English forerunner tūn was used for an ‘enclosure’ or ‘yard’, and also for a ‘building or set of buildings within an enclosure’, hence a ‘farm’. This in due course evolved to a ‘cluster of dwellings’, and by the 12th century the modern English sense of the word was in place (the standard Old English term for ‘town’ was burg, ancestor of modern English borough).

The -ton ending of English place-names goes back in many cases to a time when the word meant ‘farmstead’.
vice: vice: Including the prefix vice-, English has three distinct words vice. The oldest, ‘wickedness’ [13], comes via Old French vice from Latin vitium ‘defect, offence’, which also gave English vicious [14], vitiate [16], and vituperate [16]. Vice ‘tool for holding’ [14] was acquired via Old French viz from Latin vītis.

This came to denote ‘vine’ (in which sense it gave English viticulture ‘vine-growing’ [19]), but originally it signified ‘tendril’, and it was this that lay behind the original meanings of English vice: ‘winding staircase’ and ‘screw’. Its modern application began to emerge in the 15th century, and derived from the notion of jaws being opened and closed by means of a ‘screw’.

The prefix vice- [15] comes from Latin vice ‘in place of’, the ablative case of vicis ‘change’ (source of English vicar, vicissitude, etc).
=> vicious, vitiate, vituperate; viticulture
alley (n.): mid-14c., "passage in a house; open passage between buildings; walkway in a garden," from Old French alee (13c., Modern French allée) "a path, passage, way, corridor," also "a going," from fem. of ale, past participle of aler "to go," which ultimately may be a contraction of Latin ambulare "to walk," or from Gallo-Roman allari, a back-formation from Latin allatus "having been brought to" [Barnhart]. Compare sense evolution of gate. Applied by c. 1500 to "long narrow enclosure for playing at bowls, skittles, etc." Used in place names from c. 1500.

The word is applied in American English to what in London is called a mews, and also is used there especially of a back-lane parallel to a main street (1729). To be up someone's alley "in someone's neighborhood" (literally or figuratively) is from 1931; alley-cat attested by 1890.
anabaptism (n.): 1640s (as a Christian doctrine, with capital A-, from 1570s), from Medieval Latin anabaptismus, from Late Greek anabaptismos, from ana- "up (in place or time), back again, anew" (see ana-) + baptismos "baptism" (see baptism).
Antigone: daughter of Oedipus, her name may mean "in place of a mother" in Greek, from anti- "opposite, in place of" (see anti-) + gone "womb, childbirth, generation," from root of gignesthai "to be born" related to genos "race, birth, descent" (see genus).
antipathic (adj.): 1830, from French antipathique; see antipathy + -ic. It tends to be used in medicine in place of antipathetic.
astronomer (n.): late 14c., from astronomy (q.v.), replacing French import astronomyen (c. 1300), which, had it survived, probably would have yielded *astronomian. Still in Shakespeare used in places where we would write astrologer.
Baja: in place names (such as Baja California), Spanish baja, literally "lower," either in elevation or geography.
barrow (n.2): "mound," Old English beorg (West Saxon), berg (Anglian) "barrow, mountain, hill, mound," from Proto-Germanic *bergaz (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German berg "mountain," Old North bjarg "rock"), from PIE root *bhergh- (2) "high, elevated" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic bregu "mountain, height;" Old Irish brigh "mountain;" Welsh bera "stack, pyramid;" Sanskrit b'rhant "high," brmhati "strengthens, elevates;" Avestan brzant- "high," Old Persian bard- "be high;" Greek Pergamos, name of the citadel of Troy). Obsolete except in place-names and southwest England dialect by 1400; revived by modern archaeology.
In place-names used of small continuously curving hills, smaller than a dun, with the summit typically occupied by a single farmstead or by a village church with the village beside the hill, and also of burial mounds. [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names]
Meaning "mound erected over a grave" was a specific sense in late Old English. Barrow-wight first recorded 1869 in Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris's translation of the Icelandic saga of Grettir the Strong.
bent (n.2): "stiff grass," Old English beonet, from West Germanic *binut- "rush, marsh grass" (cognates: Old Saxon binet, Old High German binuz, German Binse "rush, reed"), which is of unknown origin. An obsolete word, but surviving in place names (such as Bentley, from Old English Beonet-leah; Bentham).
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and, in bright apparel clad
And fledg'd with icy feathers, nod superb.

[Cowper, "The Winter-Morning Walk," from "The Task"]
bluestocking (n.): also blue-stocking, 1790, derisive word for a woman considered too learned, traces to a London literary salon founded c. 1750 by Elizabeth Montagu on the Parisian model, featuring intellectual discussion instead of card games, and in place of ostentatious evening attire, simple dress, including Benjamin Stillingfleet's blue-gray tradesman's hose which he wore in place of gentleman's black silk, hence the term, first applied in derision to the whole set by Admiral Boscawen. None of the ladies wore blue stockings. Borrowed by the neighbors in loan-translations, such as French bas-bleu, Dutch blauwkous, German Blaustrumpf.
by (prep.): Old English be- (unstressed) or bi (stressed) "near, in, by, during, about," from Proto-Germanic *bi "around, about" (cognates: Old Saxon and Old Frisian bi "by near," Middle Dutch bie, Dutch bij, German bei "by, at, near," Gothic bi "about"), from *umbi (cognate with second element in PIE *ambhi "around;" see ambi-).

Originally an adverbial particle of place, in which sense it is retained in place names (Whitby, Grimsby, etc.). Elliptical use for "secondary course" (opposed to main, as in byway, also compare by-blow "illegitimate child," 1590s) was in Old English. This also is the sense of the second by in the phrase by the by (1610s). By the way literally means "in passing by" (mid-14c.); used figuratively to introduce a tangential observation by 1540s.

Phrase by and by (early 14c.) originally meant "one by one," modern sense is from 1520s. By and large (1660s) originally was nautical, "sailing to the wind and off it," hence "in one direction then another."
castle (n.): late Old English castel "village" (this sense from a biblical usage in Vulgar Latin); later "large fortified building, stronghold," in this sense from Old North French castel (Old French chastel, 12c.; Modern French château), from Latin castellum "a castle, fort, citadel, stronghold; fortified village," diminutive of castrum "fort," from Proto-Italic *kastro- "part, share;" cognate with Old Irish cather, Welsh caer "town" (and perhaps related to castrare via notion of "cut off;" see caste). In early bibles, castle was used to translate Greek kome "village."

This word also had come to Old English as ceaster and formed the -caster and -chester in place names. Spanish alcazar "castle" is from Arabic al-qasr, from Latin castrum. Castles in Spain translates 14c. French chastel en Espaigne (the imaginary castles sometimes stood in Brie, Asia, or Albania) and probably reflects the hopes of landless knights to establish themselves abroad. The statement that an (English) man's home is his castle is from 16c.
changeling (n.): 1550s, "one given to change," from change (n.) + diminutive suffix -ling. Meaning "person or thing left in place of one secretly taken" is from 1560s; specific reference to an infant or young child (usually stupid or ugly) supposedly left by the faeries in place of one they took is from 1580s. An earlier word for it was oaf or auf.
cheap (adj.): "low in price, that may be bought at small cost," c. 1500, ultimately from Old English noun ceap "traffic, a purchase," from ceapian (v.) "trade," probably from an early Germanic borrowing from Latin caupo "petty tradesman, huckster" (see chapman).

The sense evolution is from the noun meaning "a barter, a purchase" to "a purchase as rated by the buyer," hence adjectival meaning "inexpensive," the main modern sense, via Middle English phrases such as god chep "favorable bargain" (12c., a translation of French a bon marché).

Sense of "lightly esteemed, common" is from 1590s (compare similar evolution of Latin vilis). The meaning "low in price" was represented in Old English by undeor, literally "un-dear" (but deop ceap, literally "deep cheap," meant "high price").

The word also was used in Old English for "market" (as in ceapdæg "market day"), a sense surviving in place names Cheapside, East Cheap, etc. Related: Cheaply. Expression on the cheap is first attested 1888. Cheap shot originally was U.S. football jargon for a head-on tackle; extended sense "unfair hit" in politics, etc. is by 1970. German billig "cheap" is from Middle Low German billik, originally "fair, just," with a sense evolution via billiger preis "fair price," etc.
chip (n.1): Old English cipp "piece of wood," perhaps from PIE root *keipo- "sharp post" (cognates: Dutch kip "small strip of wood," Old High German kipfa "wagon pole," Old Norse keppr "stick," Latin cippus "post, stake, beam;" the Germanic words perhaps borrowed from Latin).

Meaning "counter used in a game of chance" is first recorded 1840; electronics sense is from 1962. Used for thin slices of foodstuffs (originally fruit) since 1769; specific reference to potatoes is found by 1859 (in "A Tale of Two Cities"); potato chip is attested by 1879. Meaning "piece of dried dung" first attested 1846, American English.

Chip of the old block is used by Milton (1642); earlier form was chip of the same block (1620s); more common modern phrase with off in place of of is early 20c. To have a chip on one's shoulder is 1830, American English, from the custom of a boy determined to fight putting a wood chip on his shoulder and defying another to knock it off. When the chips are down (1940s) is from the chips being down on the table after the final bets are made in a poker match.
clough (n.): "ravine with a river," Old English cloh (in place names), of uncertain origin.
commit (v.): late 14c., "to give in charge, entrust," from Latin committere "to unite, connect, combine; to bring together," from com- "together" (see com-) + mittere "to put, send" (see mission). Evolution into modern range of meanings is not entirely clear. Sense of "perpetrating" was ancient in Latin; in English from mid-15c. The intransitive use (in place of commit oneself) first recorded 1982, probably influenced by existentialism use (1948) of commitment to translate Sartre's engagement "emotional and moral engagement."
congregation (n.): mid-14c., "a gathering, assembly," from Old French congregacion (12c., Modern French congrégation), from Latin congregationem (nominative congregatio), noun of action from congregare (see congregate).

Used by Tyndale to translate Greek ekklesia in New Testament and by some Old Testament translators in place of synagoge. (Vulgate uses a variety of words in these cases, including congregatio but also ecclesia, vulgus, synagoga, populus.) Protestant reformers in 16c. used it in place of church; hence the word's main modern sense of "local society of believers" (1520s).
coomb (n.): also combe, "deep hollow or valley, especially on flank of a hill," mainly surviving in place names, from Old English cumb, probably a British word, from Celtic base *kumbos (compare Welsh cwm in same sense). Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names says, "This is usually taken to be a Celtic loan ... but there was also OE cumb 'vessel, cup, bowl,'" which was "probably used in a transferred topographical sense reinforced in western districts by cwm."
creek (n.): mid-15c., creke "narrow inlet in a coastline," altered from kryk (early 13c.; in place names from 12c.), probably from Old Norse kriki "corner, nook," perhaps influenced by Anglo-French crique, itself from a Scandinavian source via Norman. Perhaps ultimately related to crook and with an original notion of "full of bends and turns" (compare dialectal Swedish krik "corner, bend; creek, cove").

Extended to "inlet or short arm of a river" by 1570s, which probably led to use for "small stream, brook" in American English (1620s). Also used there and in Canada, Australia, New Zealand for "branch of a main river," possibly from explorers moving up main rivers and seeing and noting mouths of tributaries without knowing they often were extensive rivers of their own. Slang phrase up the creek "in trouble," often especially "pregnant," first recorded 1941, perhaps originally armed forces slang for "lost while on patrol."
dar: Arabic word, literally "house," used in place names, such as Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, literally "House of Peace."
dormant (adj.): late 14c., "fixed in place," from Old French dormant (12c.), present participle of dormir "to sleep," from Latin dormire "to sleep," from PIE root *drem- "to sleep" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic dremati "to sleep, doze," Greek edrathon "I slept," Sanskrit drati "sleeps"). Meaning "in a resting situation" (in heraldry) is from c. 1500. Meaning "sleeping' is from 1620s.
down (n.2): Old English dun "down, moor; height, hill, mountain," from Proto-Germanic *dunaz- (cognates: Middle Dutch dunen "sandy hill," Dutch duin), "probably a pre-insular loan-word from Celtic" [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names], in other words, borrowed at a very early period, before the Anglo-Saxon migration, from PIE root *dheue- "to close, finish, come full circle." Meaning "elevated rolling grassland" is from c. 1300.

The non-English Germanic words tend to mean "dune, sand bank" (see dune), while the Celtic cognates tend to mean "hill, citadel" (compare Old Irish dun "hill, hill fort;" Welsh din "fortress, hill fort;" and second element in place names London, Verdun, etc.). German Düne, French dune, Italian, Spanish duna are said to be loan-words from Dutch.
ea (n.): the usual Old English word for "river, running water" (still in use in Lancashire, according to OED); see aqua-. "The standard word in place-names for river denoting a watercourse of greater size than a broc or a burna" [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names].
euphemism (n.): 1650s, from Greek euphemismos "use of a favorable word in place of an inauspicious one," from euphemizein "speak with fair words, use words of good omen," from eu- "good, well" (see eu-) + pheme "speech, voice, utterance, a speaking," from phanai "speak" (see fame (n.)).

In ancient Greece, the superstitious avoidance of words of ill-omen during religious ceremonies, or substitutions such as Eumenides "the Gracious Ones" for the Furies (see also Euxine). In English, a rhetorical term at first; broader sense of "choosing a less distasteful word or phrase than the one meant" is first attested 1793. Related: Euphemistic; euphemistically.
euthanize (v.): by 1915, in place of earlier and etymologically correct euthanatize (1873); see euthanasia + -ize. Related: Euthanized; euthanizing.
extra: 1650s as a stand-alone adjective; also used as an adverb and noun in 17c. (see extra-); modern usages -- including sense of "minor performer in a play" (1777) and "special edition of a newspaper" (1793) -- probably all are from shortenings of extraordinary, which in 18c. was used extensively as noun and adverb in places extra would serve today.
fastness (n.): "a place not easily forced, a stronghold," late Old English fæstnes "firmness, strongness, massiveness, stability; the firmament," from fast (adj.) in its older sense of "firm, fixed in place" + -ness.
fell (n.1): "rocky hill," c. 1300, from Old Norse fiall "mountain," from Proto-Germanic *felzam- "rock" (cognates: Old High German felisa, German Fels "stone, rock"), from PIE root *pel(i)s- "rock, cliff." Old High German felisa "a rock" is the source of French falaise (formerly falize) "cliff." Now mostly in place-names, such as Scafell Pike, highest mountain in England.
flash (n.2): "sudden rush of water," 1660s, earlier "watery place or marsh, a swamp" (c. 1400; in place names from c. 1300), of uncertain origin or connection to flash (n.1); perhaps from Old French flache, from Middle Dutch vlacke. Flash flood is from 1940.
folly (n.): early 13c., "mental weakness; foolish behavior or character; unwise conduct" (in Middle English including wickedness, lewdness, madness), from Old French folie "folly, madness, stupidity" (12c.), from fol (see fool (n.)). From c. 1300 as "an example of foolishness;" sense of "costly structure considered to have shown folly in the builder" is attested from 1650s. But used much earlier, since Middle English, in place names, especially country estates, probably as a form of Old French folie in its meaning "delight." Related: Follies.
for (prep.): Old English for "before, in the sight of, in the presence of; as far as; during, before; on account of, for the sake of; in place of, instead of," from Proto-Germanic *fur "before; in" (cognates: Old Saxon furi "before," Old Frisian for, Middle Dutch vore, Dutch voor "for, before;" German für "for;" Danish for "for," før "before;" Gothic faur "for," faura "before"), from PIE *pr- (see fore (adv.)).

From late Old English as "in favor of." For and fore differentiated gradually in Middle English. For alone as a conjunction, "because, since, for the reason that; in order that" is from late Old English, probably a shortening of common Old English phrases such as for þon þy "therefore," literally "for the (reason) that."