quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- mass
- mass: English has two distinct words mass. The one meaning ‘Eucharist’ [OE] comes from late Latin missa, a noun use of the feminine past participle of mittere ‘send’ (source of English admit, commit, dismiss, mission, etc) possibly arising from Ite, missa est ‘Go, it is the dismissal’, the last words of the Latin Eucharist service. Mass ‘amount of matter’ [14] comes via Old French masse and Latin massa from Greek maza ‘barley cake’, hence ‘lump, mass’.
The derivative massive [15] goes back ultimately to Vulgar Latin *massīceus. A possible relative is massage [19], a borrowing from French. It was a derivative of masser ‘massage’, which may have been acquired from Portuguese amassar ‘knead’, a verb based on massa ‘mass, dough’.
=> admit, commit, dismiss, mission, transmit; massage, massive - famous (adj.)
- late 14c., "celebrated in public report, renowned, well-known" also "notorious, infamous," from Anglo-French famous, Old French fameus (Modern French fameux), from Latin famosus "much talked of, renowned," often "infamous, notorious, of ill repute," from fama (see fame (n.)). A native word for this was Old English namcuð, literally "name-known." Catch phrase famous last words in the humorous sense "remark likely to prove fatally wrong" is attested from 1921 (early lists of them include "Let's see if it's loaded ... We'll get across before the train comes ... Which one is the third rail? ... Light up, it can't explode").
- last (adj., adv.)
- "following all others," from Old English latost (adj.) and lætest (adv.), superlative of læt (see late). Cognate with Old Frisian lest, Dutch laatst, Old High German laggost, German letzt. Meaning "most recent" is from c. 1200. The noun, "last person or thing," is c. 1200, from the adjective. Last hurrah is from the title of Edwin O'Connor's 1956 novel. Last word "final, definitive statement" is from 1650s. A dying person's last words so called by 1740. As an adjective, last-minute attested from 1913. Last-chance (adj.) is from 1962.
- sentimentalize (v.)
- 1764, intransitive, "indulge in sentiments," from sentimental + -ize. Meaning "to make sentimental" (transitive) is from 1813. Related: Sentimentalized; sentimentalizing.
Think on these things, and let S______ go to Lincoln sessions by himself, and talk classically with country justices. In the meantime we will philosophize and sentimentalize;--the last word is a bright invention of the moment in which it was written, for yours or Dr. Johnson's service .... [Laurence Sterne, letter to William Combe, Esq., dated Aug. 5, 1764, published 1787]
- sockdolager (n.)
- 1830, "a decisive blow" (also, figuratively "a conclusive argument"), fanciful formation from sock (v.1) "hit hard," perhaps via a comical mangling of doxology, on a notion of "finality." The meaning "something exceptional" is attested from 1838.
Sockdologising likely was nearly the last word President Abraham Lincoln heard. During the performance of Tom Taylor's "Our American Cousin," assassin John Wilkes Booth (who knew the play well) waited for the laugh-line "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologising old man-trap." Amid the noise as the audience responded, Booth fired the fatal shot. - zymurgy (n.)
- branch of chemistry which deals with wine-making and brewing, 1868, from Greek zymo-, comb. form of zyme "a leaven" (from PIE root *yeue-; see juice) + -ourgia "a working," from ergon "work" (see organ).
The last word in many standard English dictionaries (and this one); but Century Dictionary ends with Zyxomma ("A genus of Indian dragon-flies") and in the OED [2nd ed.] the last word is zyxt, an obsolete Kentish form of the second person singular of see (v.).
At the dictionary's letter A
Mr. Brandt is young and gay
But when at last he reaches zed
He's in his wheelchair, nearly dead
[Einar Haugen]