quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- shop
- shop: [13] The word shop had humble beginnings. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *skoppan, which denoted a small additional structure, such as a lean-to shed or a porch. There is one isolated example of an Old English descendant of this – sceoppa, which denoted a ‘treasury’ – but this does not appear to have survived. The modern English word was borrowed from Old French eschoppe ‘booth, stall’, which in turn had got it from Middle Low German schoppe.
German dialect schopf ‘shed, shelter’ comes from the same source. The verb shop originated in the 16th century, in the sense ‘imprison’ (reflecting a now obsolete slang use of the noun shop for ‘prison’). This is the ancestor of modern British slang shop ‘inform against’. The sense ‘visit shops to buy things’ emerged in the mid 18th century.
- copra (n.)
- dried kernel of coconut, 1580s, from Portuguese copra (16c.), from Malayalam koppara (cognate with Hindi khopra) "coconut;" related to Hindi khopri "skull," from Sanskrit kharparah "skull."
- nickel (n.)
- whitish metal element, 1755, coined in 1754 by Swedish mineralogist Axel von Cronstedt (1722-1765) from shortening of Swedish kopparnickel "copper-colored ore" (from which it was first obtained), a half-translation of German Kupfernickel, literally "copper demon," from Kupfer (see copper) + Nickel "demon, goblin, rascal" (a pet form of masc. proper name Nikolaus, compare English Old Nick "the devil;" see Nicholas); the ore so called by miners because it looked like copper but yielded none.
Meaning "coin made partly of nickel" is from 1857, when the U.S. introduced one-cent coins made of nickel to replace the old bulky copper pennies. Application to five-cent piece (originally one part nickel, three parts copper) is from 1883, American English; in earlier circulation there were silver half-dimes. To nickel-and-dime (someone) is from 1964 (nickels and dimes "very small amounts of money" is attested from 1893). - shop (n.)
- c. 1300, "booth or shed for trade or work," perhaps from Old English scoppa, a rare word of uncertain meaning, apparently related to scypen "cowshed," from Proto-Germanic *skoppan "small additional structure" (cognates: Old High German scopf "building without walls, porch," German dialectal Scopf "porch, cart-shed, barn," German Schuppen "a shed"), from root *skupp-. Or the Middle English word was acquired from Old French eschoppe "booth, stall" (Modern French échoppe), which is a Germanic loan-word from the same root.
Meaning "building or room set aside for sale of merchandise" is from mid-14c. Meaning "schoolroom equipped for teaching vocational arts" is from 1914, American English. Sense of "matters pertaining to one's trade" is from 1814 (as in talk shop (v.), 1860).