英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

arsenal: arsenal: [16] The word arsenal has a complicated history, stretching back through Italian to Arabic. The Arabic original was dāras- sinā‘ah, literally ‘house of the manufacture’. This seems to have been borrowed into Venetian Italian, somehow losing its initial d, as arzaná, and been applied specifically to the large naval dockyard in Venice (which in the 15th century was the leading naval power in the Mediterranean).

The dockyard is known to this day as the Arzenale, showing the subsequent addition of the -al ending. English acquired the word either from Italian or from French arsenal, and at first used it only for dockyards (‘making the Arsenal at Athens, able to receive 1000 ships’, Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny’s Natural history 1601); but by the end of the 16th century it was coming into more general use as a ‘military storehouse’.

The English soccer club Arsenal gets its name from its original home in Woolwich, south London, where there used to be a British government arsenal.
atmosphere: atmosphere: [17] Etymologically, atmosphere means ‘ball of vapour’. It was coined as modern Latin atmosphaera from Greek atmós ‘vapour’ (related to áein ‘blow’, ultimate source of English air) and sphaira ‘sphere’. Its original application was not, as we would now understand it, to the envelope of air encompassing the Earth, but to a mass of gas exhaled from and thus surrounding a planet; indeed, in the first record of the word’s use in English, in 1638, it was applied to the Moon, which of course is now known to have no atmosphere. The denotation of the word moved forward with the development of meteorological knowledge.
=> air, sphere
bridge: bridge: [OE] A distant relative of bridge, Old Slavic bruvino ‘beam’, coupled with the meaning of the cognate Old Norse bryggja ‘gangway’, suggest that the underlying etymological meaning of the word is not ‘spanning structure’ but ‘road or structure made of logs’. The Norse word, incidentally, produced the Scottish and northern English brig ‘bridge’.

The card game bridge is first unambiguously mentioned in English in the 1880s, and its name has no connection with the ‘spanning’ bridge. The earliest recorded form of the word is biritch. Its source has never been satisfactorily explained, but since a game resembling bridge is known to have been played for many centuries in the Middle East, it could well be that the name originated in that area.

One suggestion put forward is that it came from an unrecorded Turkish *bir-ü, literally ‘one-three’ (one hand being exposed during the game while the other three are concealed).
chink: chink: English has three words chink. The one denoting the sharp metallic sound [16] is purely onomatopoeic. The one meaning ‘small hole’ [16] is something of a mystery, but it may be an alteration of chine ‘fissure’ [14] (best known today as the term for a coastal ravine in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight), which came from Old English cinu. Chink as a demeaning term for a Chinese person [19] is a facetious formation based on China or Chinese.
divulge: divulge: [15] Etymologically, to divulge something is to make it known to the vulgar masses. The word comes from Latin dīvulgāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘widely’ and vulgāre ‘make common, publish’. This in turn was derived from vulgus ‘common people’, source of English vulgar. At first in English it was semantically neutral, meaning ‘make widely known’ (‘fame of his ouvrages [works, achievements] hath been divulged’, William Caxton, Book of Eneydos 1490), but by the 17th century the word’s modern connotations of ‘disclosing what should be secret’ had developed.
=> vulgar
focus: focus: [17] Latin focus meant ‘fireplace’, and in post-classical times it came to be used for ‘fire’ itself – hence French feu, Italian fuoco, Spanish fuego, all meaning ‘fire’, and hence too the English derivatives fuel and fusillade. The first writer known to have used it in its modern sense ‘point of convergence’ was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, in 1604, but the reason for his choice of word is not clear.

It may have been some metaphorical notion of the ‘hearth’ symbolizing the ‘centre of the home’, but it has also been suggested that it may have been preceded and inspired by the use of focus for the ‘burning point’ of a mirror (not actually recorded until somewhat later). The philosopher Thomas Hobbes appears to have introduced the term into English, in 1656. A medieval Latin derivative of focus was focārius, from which French got foyer ‘hearth, home’, borrowed by English in the 19th century for a public entrance hall or lobby.
=> foyer, fuel, fusillade
hurry: hurry: [16] The earliest known occurrences of the verb hurry are in the plays of Shakespeare, who uses it quite frequently. This suggests that it may have been a word well known to him in his native West Midland dialect, but it is not clear whether it is identical with the horye that occurs in a 14th-century Middle English poem from the same general area. A possible relative is Middle High German hurren ‘move quickly’.
lack: lack: [12] The word lack is not known to have existed in Old English, although it is by no means impossible that it did. If it was a borrowing, a possible source would have been Middle Dutch lak ‘deficiency, fault’. This has been traced back to a prehistoric Germanic *lak-, a variant of which produced English leak.
=> leak
rabbit: rabbit: [14] Rabbit was probably introduced into English from Old French. No immediate source is known to have existed, but we do have corroborative evidence in French dialect rabotte ‘young rabbit’ and Walloon robète. The latter was a diminutive derivative of Flemish robbe (Walloon is the form of French spoken in Flanders and Belgium), and it seems likely that the word’s ultimate origins are Low German. At first it was used only for ‘young rabbit’ in English, and it did not really begin to take over from cony as the general term for the animal until the 18th century.
storey: storey: [14] Storey is etymologically the same word as story. Both come ultimately from Latin historia ‘story’ (source also of English history). Storey itself was borrowed directly from Anglo- Latin historia, which is known to have been used for ‘picture’, and may also have denoted a ‘row of pictures in the form of stained glass windows or statues, telling a story’, which filled the entire wall between floor and ceiling at a given level of a building.
=> history, story
vulgar: vulgar: [14] Latin vulgus, a word of uncertain origin, denoted the ‘common people’. From it was derived the adjective vulgāris, from which English gets vulgar. The Vulgate [17], a version of the Bible translated into Latin in the 4th century, was so called because it made the text available to the ‘common people’. Divulge comes from the same source, and means etymologically ‘make known to the common people’.
=> divulge
auto-da-fe (n.): 1723, "sentence passed by the Inquisition" (plural autos-da-fé), from Portuguese auto-da-fé "judicial sentence, act of the faith," especially the public burning of a heretic, from Latin actus de fide, literally "act of faith." Although the Spanish Inquisition is better-known today, there also was one in Portugal.
beer (n.): Old English beor "strong drink, beer, mead," a word of much-disputed and ambiguous origin, cognate with Old Frisian biar, Middle Dutch and Dutch bier, Old High German bior, German Bier.

Probably a 6c. West Germanic monastic borrowing of Vulgar Latin biber "a drink, beverage" (from Latin infinitive bibere "to drink;" see imbibe). Another suggestion is that it comes from Proto-Germanic *beuwoz-, from *beuwo- "barley." The native Germanic word for the beverage was the one that yielded ale (q.v.).
Beer was a common drink among most of the European peoples, as well as in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but was known to the Greeks and Romans only as an exotic product. [Buck]
They did have words for it, however. Greek brytos, used in reference to Thracian or Phrygian brews, was related to Old English breowan "brew;" Latin zythum is from Greek zythos, first used of Egyptian beer and treated as an Egyptian word but perhaps truly Greek and related to zyme "leaven." French bière is from Germanic. Spanish cerveza is from Latin cervesia "beer," perhaps related to Latin cremor "thick broth."

Old Church Slavonic pivo, source of the general Slavic word for "beer," is originally "a drink" (compare Old Church Slavonic piti "drink"). French bière is a 16c. borrowing from German. U.S. slang beer goggles, through which every potential romantic partner looks desirable, is from 1986.
Buddha (n.): 1680s, from Pali, literally "awakened, enlightened," past participle of budh "to awake, know, perceive," related to Sanskrit bodhati "is awake, observes, understands" (see bode). Title given by his adherents to the man who taught this path, Siddhartha Gautama, also known to them as Sakyamuni "Sage of the Sakyas" (his family clan), who lived in northern India 5c. B.C.E.
capital (n.1): early 15c., "a capital letter," from capital (adj.). The meaning "capital city" is first recorded 1660s (the Old English word was heafodstol). The financial sense is from 1610s (Middle English had chief money "principal fund," mid-14c.), from Medieval Latin capitale "stock, property," noun use of neuter of capitalis "capital, chief, first." (The noun use of this adjective in classical Latin was for "a capital crime.")
[The term capital] made its first appearance in medieval Latin as an adjective capitalis (from caput, head) modifying the word pars, to designate the principal sum of a money loan. The principal part of a loan was contrasted with the "usury"--later called interest--the payment made to the lender in addition to the return of the sum lent. This usage, unknown to classical Latin, had become common by the thirteenth century and possibly had begun as early as 1100 A.D., in the first chartered towns of Europe. [Frank A. Fetter, "Reformulation of the Concepts of Capital and Income in Economics and Accounting," 1937, in "Capital, Interest, & Rent," 1977]
Also see cattle, and compare sense development of fee, pecuniary.
cardinal (adj.): "chief, pivotal," early 14c., from Latin cardinalis "principal, chief, essential," from cardo (genitive cardinis) "that on which something turns or depends; pole of the sky," originally "door hinge," which is of unknown origin. Related: Cardinally.

The cardinal points (1540s) are north, south, east, west. The cardinal sins (c. 1600) are too well known to require rehearsal. The cardinal virtues (c. 1300) were divided into natural (justice prudence, temperance, fortitude) and theological (faith, hope, charity). The natural ones were the original classical ones, which were amended by Christians. But typically in Middle English only the first four were counted as the cardinal virtues:
Of þe uour uirtues cardinales spekeþ moche þe yealde philosofes. ["Ayenbite of Inwyt," c. 1340]
By analogy of this, and cardinal points, cardinal winds, cardinal signs (four zodiacal signs marking the equinoxes and the solstices), the adjective in Middle English acquired an association with the number four.
chad (n.3): "hanging flap or piece after a hole is punched in paper," a word unknown to most people until the 2000 U.S. presidential election (when the outcome hinged on partially punched paper ballots in some Florida counties), attested by 1930, of unknown origin.
cobalt (n.): 1680s, from German kobold "household goblin," Harz Mountains silver miners' term for rock laced with arsenic and sulfur (so called because it degraded the ore and made the miners ill), from Middle High German kobe "hut, shed" + *holt "goblin," from hold "gracious, friendly," a euphemistic word for a troublesome being. The metallic element was extracted from this rock. It was known to Paracelsus, but discovery is usually credited to the Swede George Brandt (1733), who gave it the name. Extended to a blue color 1835 (a mineral containing it had been used as a blue coloring for glass since 16c.). Compare nickel.
collie (n.): 1650s, possibly from dialectal coaly "coal-black," the color of some breeds (compare colley, "sheep with black face and legs," attested from 1793; Middle English colfox, "coal-fox," a variety of fox with tail and both ears tipped with black; and colley, Somerset dialectal name for "blackbird"). Or from Scandinavian proper name Colle, which is known to have been applied to dogs in Middle English ("Ran Colle our dogge, and Talbot, and Gerlond" [Chaucer]); or perhaps a convergence of the two.
Coney Island: community in Brooklyn, N.Y., so called for the rabbits once found there (see coney) and was known to the Dutch as Konijn Eiland, from which the English name probably derives. It emerged as a resort and amusement park center after the U.S. Civil War.
cubit (n.): ancient unit of measure based on the forearm from elbow to fingertip, usually from 18 to 22 inches, early 14c., from Latin cubitum "the elbow," from PIE *keu(b)- "to bend." Such a measure, known by a word meaning "forearm" or the like, was known to many peoples (Greek pekhys, Hebrew ammah, English ell).
echovirus (n.): also ECHO virus, 1955, acronym for enteric cytopathogenic human orphan; "orphan" because when discovered they were not known to cause any disease.
ecumenical (adj.): late 16c., "representing the entire (Christian) world," formed in English as an ecclesiastical word, from Late Latin oecumenicus "general, universal," from Greek oikoumenikos "from the whole world," from he oikoumene ge "the inhabited world (as known to the ancient Greeks); the Greeks and their neighbors considered as developed human society (as opposed to barbarian lands)," in later use "the Roman world" and in the Christian sense in ecclesiastical Greek, from oikoumenos, present passive participle of oikein "inhabit," from oikos "house, habitation" (see villa). Related: Ecumenic.
fact (n.): 1530s, "action, anything done," especially "evil deed," from Latin factum "an event, occurrence, deed, achievement," in Medieval Latin also "state, condition, circumstance," literally "thing done" (source also of Old French fait, Spanish hecho, Italian fatto), noun use of neuter of factus, past participle of facere "to do" (see factitious). Main modern sense of "thing known to be true" is from 1630s, from notion of "something that has actually occurred."

Compare feat, which is an earlier adoption of the same word via French. Facts "real state of things (as distinguished from a statement of belief)" is from 1630s. In fact "in reality" is from 1707. Facts of life "harsh realities" is from 1854; euphemistic sense of "human sexual functions" first recorded 1913. Alliterative pairing of facts and figures is from 1727.
Facts and Figures are the most stubborn Evidences; they neither yield to the most persuasive Eloquence, nor bend to the most imperious Authority. [Abel Boyer, "The Political State of Great Britain," 1727]
felon (n.): c. 1300, "one who deceives or commits treason; one who is wicked or evil; evil-doer," used of Lucifer and Herod, from Old French felon "evil-doer, scoundrel, traitor, rebel, oath-breaker, the Devil" (9c.), from Medieval Latin fellonem (nominative fello) "evil-doer," which is of uncertain origin, perhaps from Frankish *fillo, *filljo "person who whips or beats, scourger" (source of Old High German fillen "to whip"); or from Latin fel "gall, poison," on the notion of "one full of bitterness." Celtic origins also have been proposed.

Another theory (advanced by Professor R. Atkinson of Dublin) traces it to Latin fellare "to suck" (see fecund), which had an obscene secondary meaning in classical Latin (well-known to readers of Martial and Catullus), which would make a felon etymologically a "cock-sucker." OED inclines toward the "gall" explanation, but finds Atkinson's "most plausible" of the others.

Also by c. 1300 in English in a general legal sense "criminal; one who has committed a felony," however that was defined. Century Dictionary notes, "the term is not applicable after legal punishment has been completed." In Middle English it also was an adjective, "traitorous, wicked, malignant." Australian official James Mudie (1837), coined felonry "as the appellative of an order or class of persons in New South Wales,--an order which happily exists in no other country in the world."
football (n.): open-air game involving kicking a ball, c. 1400; in reference to the inflated ball used in the game, mid-14c. ("Ãe heued fro Ã¾e body went, Als it were a foteballe," Octavian I manuscript, c. 1350), from foot (n.) + ball (n.1). Forbidden in a Scottish statute of 1424. One of Shakespeare's insults is "you base foot-ball player" [Lear I.iv]. Ball-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems first to have risen to a national obsession in England, c. 1630. Figurative sense of "something idly kicked around, something subject to hard use and many vicissitudes" is by 1530s.

Rules of the game first regularized at Cambridge, 1848; soccer (q.v.) split off in 1863. The U.S. style (known to some in England as "stop-start rugby with padding") evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team's rules, was true U.S. football. Both were described as foot-ball at Princeton.
Then twenty-five of the best players in college were sent up to Brunswick to combat with the Rutgers boys. Their peculiar way of playing this game proved to Princeton an insurmountable difficulty; .... Two weeks later Rutgers sent down the same twenty-five, and on the Princeton grounds, November 13th, Nassau played her game; the result was joyous, and entirely obliterated the stigma of the previous defeat. ["Typical Forms of '71" by the Princeton University Class of '72, 1869]
French fries (n.): 1903, American English, earlier French fried potatoes (by 1883), from French (adj.) + fry (v.). The name is from the method of making them by immersion in fat, which was then considered a peculiarity of French cooking.
There are 2 ways of frying known to cooks as (1) wet frying, sometimes called French frying or frying in a kettle of hot fat; and (2) dry frying or cooking in a frying pan. The best results are undoubtedly obtained by the first method, although it is little used in this country. ["The Household Cook Book," Chicago, 1902]
French frieds (1944) never caught on. Simple short form fries attested by 1973. In the Upper Midwest of the U.S., sometimes called, with greater accuracy, American fries (1950), and briefly during a period of mutual ill feeling, an attempt was made at freedom fries (2003; compare liberty-cabbage for sauerkraut during World War I). Related: French-fry.
fugitive (adj.): late 14c., "fleeing, having fled, having taken flight," from Old French fugitif, fuitif "absent, missing," from Latin fugitivus "fleeing," past participle adjective from stem of fugere "to flee, fly, take flight, run away; become a fugitive, leave the country, go into exile; pass quickly; vanish, disappear, perish; avoid, shun; escape the notice of, be unknown to," from PIE root *bheug- (1) "to flee" (cognates: Greek pheugein "to flee," Lithuanian bugstu "be frightened," bauginti "frighten someone," baugus "timid, nervous"). Old English had flyma.

Meaning "lasting but a short time, fleeting" is from c. 1500. Hence its use in literature for short compositions written for passing occasions or purposes (1766).
glutton (n.): "one who eats and drinks to excess," early 13c., from Old French gloton "glutton;" also "scoundrel," a general term of abuse (Modern French glouton), from Latin gluttonem (nominative glutto) "overeater," formed from gluttire "to swallow," from gula "throat," from PIE *gwele- (3) "to swallow" (see glut (v.)). General sense in reference to one who indulges in anything to excess is from 1704. Glutton for punishment is from pugilism; the phrase is from 1854, but the idea is older:
Thus, Theocritus, in his Milling-match, calls Amycus "a glutton," which is well known to be the classical phrase at Moulsey-Hurst, for one who, like Amycus, takes a deal of punishment before he is satisfied. [Tom Moore, "Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress," 1819]
grass widow (n.): 1520s, the earliest recorded sense is "mistress;" the allusion to grass is not clear, but it commonly was believed to refer to casual bedding (compare bastard and German Strohwitwe, literally "straw-widow," and compare the expression give (a woman) a grass gown "roll her playfully on the grass" (1580s), also euphemistic for the loss of virginity). Revived late 18c. as "one that pretends to have been married, but never was, yet has children;" in early 19c. use it could mean "married woman whose husband is absent" (and often presumed, but not certainly known to be, dead), also often applied to a divorced or discarded wife or an unmarried woman who has had a child. Both euphemistic and suggestive.
[G]rasse wydowes ... be yet as seuerall as a barbours chayre and neuer take but one at onys. [More, 1528]

GRASS WIDOW, s. a forsaken fair one, whose nuptials, not celebrated in a church, were consummated, in all pastoral simplicity, on the green turf. [Rev. Robert Forby, "Vocabulary of East Anglia," London, 1830]
gymnosophist (n.): c. 1400, from Greek gymnosophistai "the naked philosophers," from gymnos "naked" (see naked) + sophistes "wise man" (see sophist). Ancient Hindu holy men whose self-denial extended to clothes; they were known to the later Greeks through the reports of Alexander the Great's soldiers.
hoodlum (n.): popularized 1871, American English, (identified throughout the 1870s as "a California word") "young street rowdy, loafer," especially one involved in violence against Chinese immigrants, "young criminal, gangster;" it appears to have been in use locally from a slightly earlier date and may have begun as a specific name of a gang:
The police have recently been investigating the proceedings of a gang of thieving boys who denominate themselves and are known to the world as the Hoodlum Gang. [San Francisco "Golden Era" newspaper, Feb. 16, 1868, p.4]
Of unknown origin, though newspapers of the day printed myriad fanciful stories concocted to account for it. A guess perhaps better than average is that it is from German dialectal (Bavarian) Huddellump "ragamuffin" [Barnhart].
What the derivation of the word "hoodlum" is we could never satisfactorily ascertain, though several derivations have been proposed; and it would appear that the word has not been very many years in use. But, however obscure the word may be, there is nothing mysterious about the thing; .... [Walter M. Fisher, "The Californians," London, 1876]
malaria (n.): 1740, from Italian mal'aria, from mala aria, literally "bad air," from mala "bad" (fem. of malo, from Latin malus; see mal-) + aria "air" (see air (n.1)). Probably first used by Italian physician Francisco Torti (1658-1741). The disease, now known to be mosquito-borne, once was thought to be caused by foul air in marshy districts. Replaced native ague.
mercury (n.): silver-white fluid metallic element, late 14c., from Medieval Latin mercurius, from Latin Mercurius (see Mercury). Prepared from cinnabar, it was one of the seven metals (bodies terrestrial) known to the ancients, which were coupled in astrology and alchemy with the seven known heavenly bodies. This one probably so associated for its mobility. The others were Sun/gold, Moon/silver, Mars/iron, Saturn/lead, Jupiter/tin, Venus/copper. The Greek name for it was hydrargyros "liquid silver," which gives the element its symbol, Hg. Compare quicksilver.
missing (adj.): "not present, absent," 1520s, from present participle of miss (v.). Military sense of "not present after a battle but not known to have been killed or captured" is from 1845. Missing link first attested 1851 in Lyell. Missing person is from 1876.
nelson (n.): type of wrestling hold, 1875, apparently from a proper or surname, but no one now knows whose.
Presently, Stubbs, the more skilful as well as the more powerful of the twain, seizes the luckless Jumper in a terrible gripe, known to the initiated as the Full Nelson. ["Lancashire Recreations," in "Chambers's Journal," April 24, 1875]
pasquinade (n.): "a lampoon," 1650s, from Middle French, from Italian pasquinata (c. 1500), from Pasquino, name given to a mutilated ancient statue (now known to represent Menelaus dragging the dead Patroclus) set up by Cardinal Caraffa in his palace in Rome in 1501; the locals named it after a schoolmaster (or tailor, or barber) named Pasquino who lived nearby. A custom developed of posting satirical verses and lampoons on the statue.
peanut (n.): 1807; see pea + nut. Earlier ground nut, ground pea (1769). The plant is native to South America; Portuguese traders took peanuts from Brazil and Peru to Africa by 1502 and it is known to have been cultivated in Chekiang Province in China by 1573, probably arriving with Portuguese sailors who made stops in Brazil en route to the Orient. Peanut butter attested by 1892; peanut brittle is from 1894. Peanut gallery "topmost rows of a theater" is from 1874, American English; peanuts "trivial sum" is from 1934.
perjury (n.): late 14c., "act of swearing to a statement known to be false," via Anglo-French perjurie (late 13c.) and Old French parjurée "perjury, false witness," both from Latin periurium "a false oath," from periurare "swear falsely," from per- "away, entirely" (see per) + iurare "to swear" (see jury (n.)). Related: Perjurious.
pygmy (n.): late 14c., Pigmei, "member of a fabulous race of dwarfs," described by Homer and Herodotus and said to inhabit Egypt or Ethiopia and India, from Latin Pygmaei (singular Pygmaeus), from Greek Pygmaioi, plural of Pygmaios "a Pygmy," noun use of adjective meaning "dwarfish," literally "of the length of a pygme; a pygme tall," from pygme "cubit," literally "fist," the measure of length from the elbow to the knuckle; related to pyx "with clenched fist" and to Latin pugnus "fist" (see pugnacious).

Figurative use for "person of small importance" is from 1590s. Believed in 17c. to refer to chimpanzees or orangutans, and occasionally the word was used in this sense. The ancient word was applied by Europeans to the equatorial African race 1863, but the tribes probably were known to the ancients and likely were the original inspiration for the legend. As an adjective from 1590s. Related: Pygmean; Pygmaean.
sequoia (n.): large American coniferous tree, 1857, from Modern Latin tree genus name given 1847 by Austrian botanist Stephan Endlicher (1804-1849), originally to a different tree, the coast redwood, apparently in honor of Sequoya (a.k.a. George Guess, 1760-1843), Cherokee man who invented a system of writing for his people's language, whose name is from Cherokee (Iroquoian) Sikwayi, a word of unknown etymology.

Endlicher was a specialist in conifers, and he also was a philologist. But he never gave an etymology of this name and a search of his papers discovered no mention of Sequoya or the Cherokee writing system, and the connection is an assumption that some botanists have challenged, though no better candidate for a source has yet been found.

The giant sequoia was unseen by Europeans until 1833 and unknown to scientists until 1852. In May 1855, a pair of American botanists named it Taxodium giganteum, but that name was deemed inappropriate for several scientific reasons. Meanwhile, English botanist John Lindley, who had never been to California, in 1853 named it Wellingtonia in honor of the Duke of Wellington. "As high as Wellington towers above his contemporaries, as high towers this California tree above the forest surrounding it. Therefore, it shall bear for all time to come the name Wellingtonia gigantea." This sat poorly with the Americans, and much ink was spilled until a French botanist provided the solution by transferring Endlicher's name. In Britain still popularly called Wellingtonia.
smog (n.): 1905, blend of smoke and fog, formed "after Lewis Carrol's example" [Klein; see portmanteau]. Reputedly coined in reference to London, and first attested there in a paper read by Dr. H.A. des Voeux, treasurer of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, though he seems not to have claimed credit for coining it.
At a recent health congress in London, a member used a new term to indicate a frequent London condition, the black fog, which is not unknown in other large cities and which has been the cause of a great deal of bad language in the past. The word thus coined is a contraction of smoke fog "smog" -- and its introduction was received with applause as being eminently expressive and appropriate. It is not exactly a pretty word, but it fits very well the thing it represents, and it has only to become known to be popular. ["Journal of the American Medical Association," Aug. 26, 1905]
Smaze (with haze (n.)) is from 1953.
spade (n.1): "tool for digging," Old English spadu "spade," from Proto-Germanic *spadan (cognates: Old Frisian spada "a spade," Middle Dutch spade "a sword," Old Saxon spado, Middle Low German spade, German Spaten), from PIE *spe-dh-, from root *spe- (2) "long, flat piece of wood" (cognates: Greek spathe "wooden blade, paddle," Old English spon "chip of wood, splinter," Old Norse spann "shingle, chip;" see spoon (n.)).

"A spade differs from a two-handed shovel chiefly in the form and thickness of the blade" [Century Dictionary]. To call a spade a spade "use blunt language, call things by right names" (1540s) translates a Greek proverb (known to Lucian), ten skaphen skaphen legein "to call a bowl a bowl," but Erasmus mistook Greek skaphe "trough, bowl" for a derivative of the stem of skaptein "to dig," and the mistake has stuck [see OED].
spinnaker (n.): "large triangular sail," 1866, either a derivative of spin in the sense of "go rapidly" or a corrupt pronunciation of Sphinx, which was the name of the first yacht known to carry this type of sail.
tangram (n.): Chinese geometric puzzle, 1864, said to be an arbitrary formation based on anagram, etc. First element perhaps Chinese t'an "to extend," or t'ang, commonly used in Cantonese for "Chinese." Some suggest it is the name of the inventor, "but no such person is known to Chinese scholars" [OED]. Another theory involves the Tanka, an outcast aboriginal people of southern China, and Western sailors who discovered the puzzle from their Tanka girlfriends. Perhaps from an obscure sense of tram. The Chinese name is Ch'i ch'iao t'u "seven ingenious plan."
tantalize (v.): 1590s, with -ize + Latin Tantalus, from Greek Tantalos, king of Phrygia, son of Zeus, father of Pelops and Niobe, punished in the afterlife (for an offense variously given) by being made to stand in a river up to his chin, under branches laden with fruit, all of which withdrew from his reach whenever he tried to eat or drink. His story was known to Chaucer (c. 1369). Related: Tantalized; tantalizing; tantalizingly; tantalization.
truthiness (n.): "act or quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than those known to be true," a catch word popularized in this sense by U.S. comedian Stephen Colbert (b.1964), declared by American Dialect Society to be "2005 Word of the Year." It was used in 1832 in a sense "habit of telling the truth," from truthy "characterized by truth" (1800), from truth (n.) + -y (2).
halon: "Any of a number of unreactive gaseous compounds of carbon with bromine and other halogens, used in fire extinguishers, but now known to damage the ozone layer", 1960s: from halogen + -on.
aboriginally: "From the very beginning; from the origin of a people or culture; in the earliest times or conditions known to history", Late 17th cent.; earliest use found in John Williams (c1633–1709), bishop of Chichester. From aboriginal + -ly.
phengite: "A transparent or translucent kind of stone known to the ancient world, probably crystallized gypsum or alabaster. Now historical", Early 17th cent.; earliest use found in Philemon Holland (1552–1637), translator. From classical Latin phengītēs (Pliny) from Hellenistic Greek ϕεγγίτης phengite, selenite, or crystallized gypsum from ancient Greek ϕέγγος light, lustre, moonlight (of uncertain origin) + -ίτης.