英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

alive [alive 词源字典]: alive: [OE] Alive comes from the Old English phrase on life, literally ‘on life’. Līfe was the dative case of līf ‘life’; between two vowels f was pronounced /v/ in Old English, hence the distinction in modern English pronunciation between life and alive.
=> life[alive etymology, alive origin, 英语词源]
anniversary: anniversary: [13] Like annual, anniversary is based ultimately on Latin annus ‘year’. The underlying idea it contains is of ‘yearly turning’ or ‘returning’; the Latin adjective anniversārius was based on annus and versus ‘turning’ (related to a wide range of English words, from verse and convert to vertebra and vertigo). This was used in phrases such as diēs anniversāria ‘day returning every year’, and eventually became a noun in its own right.
=> annual, convert, verse
archives: archives: [17] The Greek verb arkhein meant originally ‘begin’ – and hence ‘be in first place, rule’. This sense development lies behind the diversity in meaning of the words ultimately derived from it in English. Greek arkheion was the official residence of a ruler, a ‘public office’, and its plural, arkheia, was used for ‘public records’; it passed into English via Latin archīa, later archīva, and French archives.

Greek arkhē, on the other hand, had the sense ‘beginning’, and the adjective formed from it, arkhaios, later arkhaikós, ‘ancient’, came through French archaïque into English as archaic [19] (arkhaios is also the source of archaeology [17]). The same split in meaning is evident in the prefix arch-, which comes from the same source: in archetype, for instance, it signifies ‘first’, whereas in archduke it implies ‘highest in rank’.
=> archaic, archetype
arrive: arrive: [13] When speakers of early Middle English ‘arrived’, what they were literally doing was coming to shore after a voyage. For arrive was originally a Vulgar Latin compound verb based on the Latin noun rīpa ‘shore, river bank’ (as in the English technical term riparian ‘of a river bank’; and river comes from the same source). From the phrase ad rīpam ‘to the shore’ came the verb *arripāre ‘come to land’, which passed into English via Old French ariver. It does not seem to have been until the early 14th century that the more general sense of ‘reaching a destination’ started to establish itself in English.
=> riparian, river
chives: chives: [14] The Latin for ‘onion’ was cēpa. The only member of the onion family to carry a reminiscence of that name in English is chives (although it crops up too in chipolata [19], which comes from Italian cipollata ‘with onions’, a derivative of Italian cipolla ‘onion’, ultimately from Latin cēpa). The Latin word entered Old French as cive (the term civet ‘game stew’ derives from cive, such stews originally having been flavoured with green onions). It must, however, have been a northern dialect version of this, *chive, which English borrowed.
=> chipolata
conceive: conceive: [13] Conceive is one of a number of English words (deceive, perceive, and receive are others) whose immediate source is the Old French morpheme -ceiv-. This goes back ultimately to Latin capere ‘take’ (source of English capture), which when prefixed became -cipere. In the case of conceive, the compound verb was concipere, where the prefix com- had an intensive force; it meant generally ‘take to oneself’, and hence either ‘take into the mind, absorb mentally’ or ‘become pregnant’ – meanings transmitted via Old French conceivre to English conceive.

The noun conceit [14] is an English formation, based on the models of deceit and receipt. Conception [13], however, goes back to the Latin derivative conceptiō.
=> capture, conceit, conception, deceive, perceive, receive
consecutive: consecutive: see sequence
contrive: contrive: [14] In Middle English, contrive was controve; it was not transformed into contrive (perhaps under the influence of Scottish pronunciation) until the 15th century. It came via Old French controver from Latin contropāre ‘represent metaphorically, compare’, a compound verb based on the prefix com- ‘too’ and tropus ‘figure of speech’ (source of English trope). The word’s meaning has progressed through ‘compare via a figure of speech’ and Old French ‘imagine’ to ‘devise’.
=> trope
costive: costive: see constipation
deceive: deceive: [13] Etymologically, to deceive someone is to ‘catch’ or ‘ensnare’ them. The word comes ultimately from Latin dēcipere ‘ensnare, take in’, a compound verb formed from the pejorative prefix dē- and capere ‘take, seize’ (source of English capture and a wide range of related words). It passed into English via Old French deceivre and decevoir. English has two noun derivatives of deceive: deceit [13] comes ultimately from the past participle of Old French decevoir, while deception [14] comes from dēcept-, the past participial stem of Latin dēcipere.
=> capable, capture, conceive, deceit, receive
deliver: deliver: [13] To deliver something is etymologically to ‘set it free’. The word comes via Old French delivrer from late Latin dēlīberāre, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix dē- and Latin līberāre ‘set free’, a derivative of the adjective līber ‘free’. Its meaning developed through ‘set free’ to ‘give up, surrender’ and finally ‘hand over to someone else’. (Classical Latin dēlīberāre, source of English deliberate [15], is an entirely different verb, derived from Latin lībra ‘scales’.)
=> liberate
deprive: deprive: see private
derive: derive: [14] Like rival, derive comes ultimately from Latin rīvus ‘stream’. This was used as the basis of a verb dērīvāre, formed with the prefix dē- ‘away’, which originally designated literally the ‘drawing off of water from a source’. This sense was subsequently generalized to ‘divert’, and extended figuratively to ‘derive’ (a metaphor reminiscent of spring from). English acquired the word via Old French deriver.
=> rival
discursive: discursive: see course
dive: dive: [OE] Old English dyfan ‘dive’ came from a prehistoric Germanic *dūbjan. This was a derivative of the base *d(e)ub-, a variant of which, *d(e)up-, was the source of English deep and dip. The colloquial use of the noun for a disreputable bar, nightclub, etc, which comes from 1880s America, is probably a reference to someone ‘diving’ out of sight into such an establishment, which was often in a basement.
=> deep, dip
diverge: diverge: see verge
diverse: diverse: [13] Diverse is one of a small family of English words, including also divers, divert, and divorce, which come ultimately from Latin dīvertere. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘aside’ and vertere ‘turn’ (source of English verse, version, vertebra, etc and related to worth), and hence meant literally ‘turn aside, turn out of the way’.

It developed in various metaphorical directions, however. One was ‘turn one’s husband or wife out of the way’ which, via the variant dīvortere, gave English divorce [14]. The central sense of the verb passed more or less unchanged into English, via French divertir, as divert [15], but its past participle diversus illustrates a further metaphorical strand, in which ‘turned aside’ has become ‘separate, different’.

English acquired this via Old French in the 13th century in two distinct forms: masculine divers and feminine diverse. The present-day semantic distinction between the former (‘various, several’) and the latter (‘different’) had established itself by around 1700.
=> divert, divorce, verse, version, worth
divest: divest: see vest
drive: drive: [OE] As far as is known, drive is an exclusively Germanic word. It and its relatives German treiben, Dutch drijven, Swedish driva, Danish drive, and Gothic dreiban point to a prehistoric Germanic ancestor *drīban. Its base also produced English drift and drove [OE]. The central modern sense of drive, ‘drive a car’, comes from the earlier notion of driving a horse, ox, etc by pushing it, whipping it, etc from behind, forcing it onwards, but in most other modern European languages the verb for ‘driving a vehicle’ denotes basically ‘leading’ or ‘guiding’ (French conduire, for example, or German lenken).
=> drift, drove
expletive: expletive: [17] Originally, an expletive word was simply one used to ‘fill up’ a line of verse, to complete its metrical pattern (expletive comes from Latin explētus, the past participle of explēre ‘fill out’, a compound formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and plēre ‘fill’, source of English complete and related to English fill).

Hence the term came to be used for a redundant word, not contributing anything to the meaning of the sentence: “The Key my loose, powerless fingers forsook”, a lame and expletive way of saying “I dropt the key”, Robert Southey 1804. The first recorded example of its euphemistic application as a noun to ‘profanities’ is by Sir Walter Scott in Guy Mannering 1815: ‘retaining only such of their expletives as are least offensive’.
=> complete, full
five: five: [OE] Five is one of a general Indo-European family of words signifying ‘five’. It goes back ultimately to Indo-European *pengke, which also produced Greek pénte (source of English pentagon [16], pentecost [OE] – literally ‘fiftieth day’ – pentagram [19], etc), Sanskrit panca (source of English punch ‘spiced drink’), and Latin quīnque. In due course this under-went a phonetic transformation to *pempe, which was the direct ancestor of prehistoric Germanic *fimfi. This led on in its turn to German fünf, Dutch vijf. Swedish and Danish fem, and English five.
=> finger, fist, pentagon, punch
forgive: forgive: [OE] Forgive is what is known technically as a ‘calque’ or loan translation – that is, it was created by taking the component parts of a foreign word, translating them literally, and then putting them back together to form a new word. In this case the foreign word was Latin perdōnāre ‘forgive’ (source of English pardon), which was a compound verb formed from per- ‘thoroughly’ and dōnāre ‘give’ (its underlying sense was ‘give wholeheartedly’). These two elements were translated in prehistoric Germanic times and assembled to give *fergeban, from which have come German vergeben, Dutch vergeven, and English forgive.
=> give
fugitive: fugitive: see refuge
furtive: furtive: [15] Etymologically, someone who is furtive ‘carries things away like a thief’. The word comes via Old French furtif from Latin furtīvus ‘stealthy, hidden’, a derivative of furtum ‘theft’, which in turn was based on fūr ‘thief’. This was either borrowed from or related to Greek phór ‘thief’, which came ultimately from Indo-European *bher- ‘carry’ (source of English bear) and thus meant literally ‘someone who carries things off’. A ferret is etymologically a ‘furtive’ animal.
=> bear, ferret
genitive: genitive: see general
give: give: [OE] Give is part of a widespread Germanic family of verbs, including also German geben, Dutch geven, Swedish giva, and Danish give, not to mention Gothic giban. They all come from a prehistoric Germanic *geban, a verb of uncertain ancestry (it has been suggested that it was related to Latin habēre ‘have’, their opposite meaning being accounted for by a shared notion of ‘reaching out the hands’ – either to ‘take and have’ or to ‘give’).
hive: hive: [OE] Hive comes ultimately from Indo- European *keup-, which denoted ‘round container, bowl’ and also produced Greek kúpellon ‘drinking vessel’, Latin cūpa ‘barrel’ (source of English coop, cooper, and cupola), and its post-classical offshoot cuppa (whence English cup). (A variant of the Indo-European base was the source of English head.) The Germanic descendant of *keup- was *khūf-, from which came Old Norse húfr ‘ship’s hull’ and English hive.
=> coop, cooper, cupola, cup, head
imperative: imperative: see empire
live: live: [OE] Modern English live represents a conflation of two Old English verbs, libban and lifian, both of which go back ultimately to the same prehistoric Germanic source, *lib- ‘remain, continue’. Variants of this produced leave ‘depart’ and life. The adjective live [16] is a reduced form of alive, which derived from life.
=> life
locomotive: locomotive: [17] Locomotive denotes etymologically ‘moving by change of place’. It is an anglicization of modern Latin locōmōtīvus, a compound formed from locus ‘place’ and mōtīvus ‘causing to move’ (source of English motive). Originally it was used strictly as an adjective, and it was not until the early 19th century that the present-day noun use (which began life as an abbreviation of locomotive engine) emerged.
naive: naive: see native
native: native: [14] Native is one of a large family of English words that go back ultimately to the Latin verb nāscī. This meant ‘be born’, and was a descendant of the Indo-European base *gen-, *gn- ‘produce’, which also gave English gene, general, generate, etc. From its past participial stem nāt- was formed the adjective nātīvus ‘from birth, born’, which has produced English native (and also, via Old French, naive [17], which is etymologically the equivalent of ‘born yesterday’), and also its derivative nativity [12] (applied from earliest times specifically to the birth of Christ).

Other English words from the same source include cognate [17], innate [15], nascent [17], natal [14], nation, nature, noel (earlier nowel [14], from an Old French descendant of Latin nātālis ‘of birth’), pregnant, puny, and renaissance [19] (literally ‘rebirth’).
=> cognate, gene, general, generate, innate, naive, nascent, nation, nature, noel, pregnant, puny, renaissance
negative: negative: see renegade
olive: olive: [13] The word olive probably originated in a pre-Indo-European language of the Mediterranean area. Greek took it over as elaíā, and passed it on to English via Latin olīva and Old French olive. The olive’s chief economic role is as a source of oil (indeed the very word oil comes from a Greek derivative of elaíā), and before the word olive arrived in English, it was called eleberge, literally ‘oil-berry’.
=> oil
pensive: pensive: see pansy
plaintive: plaintive: see plague
prerogative: prerogative: [14] Latin praerogāre meant ‘ask before others’ (it was a compound verb formed from the prefix prae- ‘before’ and rogāre ‘ask’, source also of English interrogate [15]). The term praerogātīva (based on its past participle) was applied to those electoral groups who were ‘invited before others’ to vote, or in other words had the privilege of voting first, in elections for state officials. Hence the word (acquired by English via Old French prerogative) came to mean in general ‘right to precedence, privilege’.
=> arrogant, interrogate
receive: receive: [13] To receive something is etymologically to ‘take it back’. The word comes via Old French receivre from Latin recipere ‘regain’, a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘back, again’ and capere ‘take’ (source of English capture). Other English descendants of recipere are receipt [14] (which goes back to medieval Latin recepta, a noun use of the verb’s feminine past participle), receptacle [15], reception [14], recipe, and recipient [16].
=> captive, capture, receptacle, recipe
restive: restive: see rest
revive: revive: see vivid
river: river: [13] Etymologically, the term river denotes the ‘banks’ of a river, rather than the water that flows between them. Its distant ancestor is Latin rīpa ‘bank’. From this was derived the adjective rīpārius (source of English riparian ‘of a riverbank’ [19]), whose feminine form came to be used in Vulgar Latin as a noun, *rīpāria, denoting ‘land by the water’s edge’.

From it evolved Italian riviera ‘bank’ (whence English Riviera [18]) and Old French riviere. This originally meant ‘river bank’, but this subsequently developed to ‘river’, the sense in which English adopted the word. A heavily disguised English relative is arrive, which etymologically denotes ‘come to the shore’.
=> arrive, riparian, riviera
shiver: shiver: Shiver ‘tremble’ [13] and shiver ‘sliver, fragment’ [12] are different words. The former was originally chiver, which may have been an alteration of an earlier chevel ‘shiver’. This in turn was derived from the Old English noun ceaft ‘jaw’ (source of English jowl), and so etymologically denoted the ‘chattering of the teeth’. Shiver ‘fragment’ may have been borrowed from Low German (Middle Low German had schever). It goes back ultimately to the prehistoric Germanic base *skif- ‘split’.
=> jowl
shrive: shrive: [OE] Shrive ‘hear someone’s confession’ goes back ultimately to Latin scrībere ‘write’ (source of English scribe, script, etc). This was borrowed into prehistoric West Germanic as *skrīban, whose direct descendants are German schreiben and Dutch schrijven ‘write’. But it also developed a specialized sense ‘prescribe penances’, and it is this that has given English shrive.

Today the word is best known in the form of shrove, its past tense, which is used in Shrove Tuesday [15] (an allusion to the practice of going to confession at the beginning of Lent), and the derived noun shrift ‘penance, confession’ [OE] (the expression short shrift originally referred to the short period of time allowed to someone about to be executed to say their confession).
=> scribe, script, shrift, shrove
skive: skive: see eschew
snivel: snivel: see snuff
strive: strive: [13] Strive was borrowed from Old French estriver ‘quarrel, strive’. It is not certain where this came from, although it has been suggested that it was acquired from Old High German strīt ‘contention’, a relative of English stride. Strife [13] comes from the associated Old French noun estrif.
=> strife
survive: survive: see vivid
swivel: swivel: see swift
thrive: thrive: [13] Thrive was borrowed from Old Norse thrífask ‘grasp for oneself’, hence ‘prosper’, the reflexive form of thrífa ‘grasp, seize’ (whose origins are not known). The word’s semantic development from ‘grasp for oneself’ to ‘prosper’ was presumably inspired by the notion of ‘accumulating resources’. Thrift [13], borrowed from the Old Norse derivative thrift, originally meant ‘thriving’; the modern sense ‘frugality’ evolved in the 16th century – frugality being thought of as a prerequisite for prosperity.
=> thrift
trivet: trivet: see foot