英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

art: art: [13] Like arm, arthritis, and article, art goes back to an Indo-European root *ar-, which meant ‘put things together, join’. Putting things together implies some skill: hence Latin ars ‘skill’. Its stem art- produced Old French art, the source of the English word. It brought with it the notion of ‘skill’, which it still retains; the modern association with painting, sculpture, etc did not begin until the mid 17th century.

Latin derivatives of ars include the verb artīre ‘instruct in various skills’, from which ultimately English gets artisan [16]; and artificium, a compound formed with a variant of facere ‘do, make’, from which we get artificial [14].
=> arm, arthritis, article, artificial, artisan, inert
assassin: assassin: [17] Etymologically, an assassin is an ‘eater or smoker of hashish’, the drug cannabis. In the Middle Ages, in the area of the Middle East and modern Iran, there was a sect of fanatical Ismaili Muslims, founded in the late 11th century by Hassan ibn Sabbah. Its members killed the sect’s opponents under the influence of cannabis. Hence the hashshāshīn (plural of hashshāsh, Arabic for ‘hashish-eater’) came to have a reputation as murderers. In English the Arabic plural form was perceived as singular. The word has retained its connotation of one who kills for political or religious rather than personal motives.
=> hashish
acquainted (adj.): early 13c., "personally known;" past participle adjective from acquaint (v.). Of skills, situations, etc., from late 15c.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain â- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

[Robert Frost, from "Acquainted with the Night"]
Ballard: surname, attested from late 12c., probably meaning "bald head;" see Wyclif's "Stye up, ballard," where Coverdale translates "Come vp here thou balde heade" [2 Kg.2:23-24, where God kills 42 children for making fun of Elijah's lack of hair.]
cockatrice (n.): late 14c., from Old French cocatriz, altered (by influence of coq) from Late Latin *calcatrix, from Latin calcare "to tread" (from calx (1) "heel"), as translation of Greek ikhneumon, literally "tracker, tracer."

In classical writings, an Egyptian animal of some sort, the mortal enemy of the crocodile, which it tracks down and kills. This vague sense became hopelessly confused in the Christian West, and in England the word ended up applied to the equivalent of the basilisk. A serpent hatched from a cock's egg, it was fabled to kill by its glance and could be slain only by tricking it into seeing its own reflection. Belief in them persisted even among the educated because the word was used in the KJV several times to translate a Hebrew word for "serpent." In heraldry, a beast half cock, half serpent.
deicide (n.): 1610s, "the killing of a god;" 1650s, "one who kills a god," from Latin deus "god" (see Zeus) + -cida (see -cide).
educrat (n.): 1968, usually pejorative; first element from education, second from bureaucrat. Said to have been coined by Claude R. Kirk Jr. (1926-2011), governor of Florida 1967-71.
While political leaders and corporate CEOs, focusing as usual on the quarterly return, call for "workers for the new economy," their educational reforms are producing just that: students with a grab-bag of minor skills and competencies and minds that are sadly uneventful, incapable of genuine intellectual achievement and lacking any sense of continuity with the historical and cultural traditions of our society. Their world is small, bleak, and limited; their world will become ours. [David Solway, "The Turtle Hypodermic of Sickenpods," Quebec, 2000]
filicide (n.): 1660s, "action of killing a son or daughter," from Latin filius/filia "son/daughter" (see filial) + -cide. Meaning "one who kills a son or daughter" is from 1823. Related: Filicidal.
fratricide (n.): mid-15c., "person who kills a brother;" 1560s, "act of killing a brother," from Latin fratricida "brother-slayer," from frater "brother" (see brother) + cida "killer;" in the later use from cidum "a killing," both from caedere "to kill, to cut down" (see -cide). Among several Old English words for this were broðorbana "one who kills a brother;" broðorcwealm "act of killing a brother."
frost (n.): Old English forst, frost "frost, a freezing, frozen precipitation, extreme cold," from Proto-Germanic *frustaz- "frost" (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German frost, Middle Dutch and Dutch vorst), related to freosan "to freeze," from suffixed form of PIE *preus- "to freeze; burn" (see freeze (v.)). Both forms of the word were common in English till late 15c.; the triumph of frost may be due to its similarity to the forms in other Germanic languages. A black frost (late 14c.) is one which kills plants (turns them black) but is not accompanied by visible frozen dew.
homicide (n.): "the killing of another person," early 13c., from Old French homicide, from Latin homicidium "manslaughter," from homo "man" (see homunculus) + -cidium "act of killing" (see -cide). The meaning "person who kills another" (late 14c.) also is from French, from Latin homicida "a murderer," from -cida "killer."
infanticide (n.): 1650s, "the killing of infants;" 1670s, "one who kills an infant," from infant + -cide.
insecticide (n.): "substance which kills insects," 1865, from insect + -cide.
matador (n.): man who kills the bull in a bullfight, 1670s, from Spanish matador, literally "killer," from matar "to kill or wound," probably from Arabic mata "he died," from Persian (see second element in checkmate). Fem. form is matadora.
matricide (n.): 1590s, "action of killing one's mother," from French matricide, from Latin matricida "mother-killer," and matricidium "mother-killing," from comb. form of mater "mother" (see mother (n.1)) + -cida "killer," and -cidium "a killing," from caedere "to slay" (see -cide). Meaning "one who kills his mother" is 1630s. Related: Matricidal (adj.). Old English had moðorslaga "matricide, mother-slayer."
moot (adj.): "debatable; not worth considering" from moot case, earlier simply moot (n.) "discussion of a hypothetical law case" (1530s), in law student jargon. The reference is to students gathering to test their skills in mock cases.
Oedipal (adj.): 1939, "of or pertaining to desire felt for opposite-sex parent," from Oedipus complex (1910), coined by Freud from Sophocles' play "Oedipus Tyrannus," in which the title character, the Theban hero, answers the Sphinx's riddle and unknowingly kills his father and marries his own mother; from Greek Oedipus. The name was used figuratively in English from 1550s for "one who is clever at guessing riddles," which had adjectival form Oedipean (1620s).
parricide (n.): 1. "person who kills a parent or near relative" (1550s), also 2. "act of killing parent or near relative" (1560s), both from Middle French parricide (13c. in sense 1, 16c. in sense 2), from 1. Latin parricida, 2. Latin parricidium, probably from parus "relative" (of uncertain origin, but compare Greek paos, peos "relation," Sanskrit purushah "man") + 1. cida "killer," 2. cidium "killing," both from caedere (see -cide). Old English had fæderslaga.
patricide (n.): 1. "person who kills his father" (1590s), 2. "act of killing one's father" (1620s), from Middle French patricide in both senses, from 1. Latin patricida "murderer of a father," 2. Latin patricidium, from pater "father" + 1. cida "killer," 2. cidium "killing" (see -cide).
pool (n.2): game similar to billiards, 1848, originally (1690s) a card game played for collective stakes (a "pool"), from French poule "stakes, booty, plunder," literally "hen," from Old French poille "hen, young fowl" (see foal (n.)).

Perhaps the original notion is from jeu de la poule, supposedly a game in which people threw things at a chicken and the player who hit it, won it, which speaks volumes about life in the Middle Ages. The notion behind the word, then, is "playing for money." The connection of "hen" and "stakes" is also present in Spanish polla and Walloon paie.

Meaning "collective stakes" in betting first recorded 1869; sense of "common reservoir of resources" is from 1917. Meaning "group of persons who share duties or skills" is from 1928. From 1933 as short for football pool in wagering. Pool shark is from 1898. The phrase dirty pool "underhanded or unsportsmanlike conduct," especially in politics (1951), seems to belong here now, but the phrase dirty pool of politics, with an image of pool (n.1) is recorded from 1871 and was in use early 20c.
potshot (n.): also pot-shot, 1836, "shot taken at animal simply to 'get it in the pot,' not for sport or marksmanship;" from pot (n.1) + shot (n.). Extended sense of "opportunistic criticism" first recorded 1926. Compare pot-hunter "one who shoots whatever he finds; one who kills for food not for sport."
regicide (n.): 1540s, "man who kills a king," formed from Latin rex (genitive regis) "king" (see regal) on model of suicide. Meaning "crime of killing a king" is from c. 1600.
remedial (adj.): 1650s, "curing, relieving, affording a remedy," from Late Latin remedialis "healing, curing," from Latin remedium (see remedy (n.)). Educational sense of "concerned with improving skills" is first recorded 1924.
rusty (adj.): Old English rustig; see rust (n.) + -y (2). Cognate with Frisian roastich, Middle Dutch roestich, Dutch roestig, Old High German rostag, German rostig. "In the 16th and 17th centuries frequently used as a term of general disparagement" [OED]. Of bodily skills, "impaired by neglect," from c. 1500; of mental qualities, accomplishments, etc., first attested 1796.
shear (v.): Old English sceran, scieran (class IV strong verb; past tense scear, past participle scoren) "to cleave, hew, cut with a sharp instrument; cut (hair); shear (sheep)," from Proto-Germanic *sker- "to cut" (cognates: Old Norse and Old Frisian skera, Dutch scheren, German scheren "to shear"), from PIE *(s)ker- (1) "to cut, to scrape, to hack" (cognates: Sanskrit krnati "hurts, wounds, kills," krntati "cuts;" Hittite karsh- "to cut off;" Greek keirein "to cut, shear;" Latin curtus "short;" Lithuanian skiriu "to separate;" Old Irish scaraim "I separate;" Welsh ysgar "to separate," ysgyr "fragment").
stampede (n.): 1844 (earlier stampedo, 1839), "A general scamper of animals on the Western prairies, generally caused by a fright" [Bartlett] from Mexican Spanish estampida, from Spanish, "an uproar," from estamper "to stamp, press, pound," from Provençal estampier "to stamp," from the same Germanic root that yielded English stamp (v.). The political sense is first recorded 1846 (in reference to the U.S. Democratic Party convention of 1844). As the name of an annual exhibition of cowboy skills in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, it is attested from 1912.
suicide (n.): "deliberate killing of oneself," 1650s, from Modern Latin suicidium "suicide," from Latin sui "of oneself" (genitive of se "self"), from PIE *s(u)w-o- "one's own," from root *s(w)e- (see idiom) + -cidium "a killing" (see -cide). Probably an English coinage; much maligned by Latin purists because it "may as well seem to participate of sus, a sow, as of the pronoun sui" [Phillips]. The meaning "person who kills himself deliberately" is from 1728. In Anglo-Latin, the term for "one who commits suicide" was felo-de-se, literally "one guilty concerning himself."
Even in 1749, in the full blaze of the philosophic movement, we find a suicide named Portier dragged through the streets of Paris with his face to the ground, hung from a gallows by his feet, and then thrown into the sewers; and the laws were not abrogated till the Revolution, which, having founded so many other forms of freedom, accorded the liberty of death. [W.E.H. Lecky, "History of European Morals," 1869]
In England, suicides were legally criminal if of age and sane, but not if judged to have been mentally deranged. The criminal ones were mutilated by stake and given degrading burial in highways until 1823. Suicide blonde (one who has "dyed by her own hand") first attested 1921. Baseball suicide squeeze is attested from 1937.
survivalist (n.): from 1882 in various senses, from survival + -ist. As "one who practices outdoor survival skills" (often in anticipation of apocalypse or in fear of government), attested by 1981.
talented (adj.): 1630s, "having skills or abilities," from talent (n.). There was a verb talent in 15c., but it meant "predispose."
toreador (n.): "bullfighter on horseback" (as opposed to a torero, who kills on foot), 1610s, from Spanish toreador, from torear "to participate in a bullfight," from toro "bull," from Latin taurus (see Taurus).
A toreador is, or rather was, a gentleman who killed bulls for his own amusement on horseback and with the spear. He was a sportsman, and his sport was as manly and respectable as pig-sticking. A professional fighter who performs in a ring and for money is a torero. ["Saturday Review," Jan. 22, 1887]
training (n.): mid-15c., "protraction, delay," verbal noun from train (v.). From 1540s as "discipline and instruction to develop powers or skills;" 1786 as "exercise to improve bodily vigor." Training wheels as an attachment to a bicycle is from 1953.
uxoricide (n.): 1830, "one who kills his wife;" 1835, "the murder of one's wife," from French uxoricide (in use 1820s) from Latin uxor "wife" (see uxorious) + -cide. Related: Uxoricidal.
wallbanger (n.): cocktail made from vodka, Galliano, and orange juice, by 1969, in full Harvey wallbanger. Probably so called from its effect on the locomotive skills of the consumer.
eutrophic: "(Of a lake or other body of water) rich in nutrients and so supporting a dense plant population, the decomposition of which kills animal life by depriving it of oxygen", Early 18th century (denoting a medicine promoting good nutrition): from Greek eutrophia, from eu 'well' + trephein 'nourish'. The current sense dates from the 1930s.
median lethal dose: "The dose of a drug or of ionizing radiation that kills 50 per cent of test subjects; symbol LD50", 1920s.
otaku: "(In Japan) a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills", Japanese, literally 'your house', in formal speech also meaning 'you', used by some anime and manga fans as an affectedly formal way of addressing others with similar interests.
ovicidal (1): "That kills sheep; of or relating to the killing of sheep", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in James Stephen. From ovi- + -cidal, after ovicide.
ovicide (2): "An agent that kills or destroys eggs or ova, especially those of insects, mites, or other pests or parasites", 1920s. From ovi- + -cide, after ovicidal.