英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

mattress [mattress 词源字典]: mattress: [13] Etymologically, a mattress is something ‘thrown’ down on the floor to lie on. The word comes via Old French materas and Italian materasso from Arabic matrah ‘mat, cushion’, a derivative of the verb taraha ‘throw’.
[mattress etymology, mattress origin, 英语词源]
border (v.): c. 1400, "to put a border on;" 1640s as "to lie on the border of," from border (n.). Related: Bordered; bordering.
grovel (v.): 1590s, Shakespearean back-formation from groveling "on the face, prostrate" (mid-14c.), also used in Middle English as an adjective but probably really an adverb, from gruffe, from Old Norse grufe "prone" + obsolete adverbial suffix -ling (which survives also as the -long in headlong, sidelong). The Old Norse word is found in liggja à grufu "lie face-down," literally "lie on proneness." Old Norse also had grufla "to grovel," grufa "to grovel, cower, crouch down." The whole group is perhaps related to creep (v.). Related: Groveled; grovelled; groveling; grovelling.
incubation (n.): 1610s, "brooding," from Latin incubationem (nominative incubatio) "a laying upon eggs," noun of action from past participle stem of incubare "to hatch," literally "to lie on, rest on," from in- "on" (see in- (2)) + cubare "to lie" (see cubicle). The literal sense of "sitting on eggs to hatch them" first recorded in English 1640s.
pad (n.): 1550s, "bundle of straw to lie on," possibly from or related to Low German or obsolete Flemish pad "sole of the foot," which is perhaps from PIE *pent- "to tread, go" (see find (v.)), but see path (n.). Meaning "cushion-like part of an animal foot" is from 1790 in English. Generalized sense of "something soft" is from c. 1700; the sense of "a number of sheets fastened together" (in writing pad, drawing pad, etc.) is from 1865.

Sense of "takeoff or landing place for a helicopter" is from 1960. The word persisted in underworld slang from early 18c. in the sense "sleeping place," and was popularized again c. 1959, originally in beatnik speech (later hippie slang) in its original English sense of "place to sleep temporarily."
Procrustes: "A robber who forced travellers to lie on a bed and made them fit it by stretching their limbs or cutting off the appropriate length of leg. Theseus killed him in like manner", From Greek prokroustēs, literally 'stretcher', from prokrouein 'beat out'.
cis: "Denoting or relating to a molecular structure in which two particular atoms or groups lie on the same side of a given plane in the molecule, in particular denoting an isomer in which substituents at opposite ends of a carbon-carbon double bond are on the same side of the bond", Independent usage of cis-.
trans: "Denoting or relating to a molecular structure in which two particular atoms or groups lie on opposite sides of a given plane in the molecule, in particular denoting an isomer in which substituents at opposite ends of a carbon-carbon double bond are also on opposite sides of the bond", Independent usage of trans-.