quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- feast
- feast: [13] The notion of ‘eating’ is a secondary semantic development for feast, whose underlying meaning (as may be guessed from the related festival [14] and festivity [14]) has more to do with joyousness than with the appeasement of hunger. Its ultimate source is the Latin adjective festus, which meant ‘joyful, merry’. This was used as a plural noun, festa, meaning ‘celebratory ceremonies, particularly of a religious nature’, which came down to Old French as feste.
This was the source of English feast, and its modern French descendant gave English fête [18]. Incidentally, the sense ‘sumptuous meal’, present in feast but not in fête, goes back to the Latin singular noun festum. Also related is festoon [17], acquired via French from Italian festone, which originally meant ‘ornament for a festive occasion’; and fair (as in fairground) comes ultimately from Latin fēria, first cousin to festus.
=> fair, festival, festoon, fête - exultation (n.)
- early 15c., from Old French exultacion "joyousness, exultation," from Latin exultationem/exsultationem "a leaping for joy, exultation," noun of action from past participle stem of exultare/exsultare (see exult). The notion is of leaping or dancing for joy. An Old English word for it was heahbliss "high bliss."
- joyous (adj.)
- c. 1300, from Anglo-French joyous, Old French joios "happy, cheerful, merry, glad" (12c., Modern French joyeux), from joie (see joy). Related: Joyously; joyousness.