英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

dog [dog 词源字典]: dog: [11] Dog is one of the celebrated mystery words of English etymology. It appears once in late Old English, in the Prudentius glosses, where it translates Latin canis, but its use does not seem to have proliferated until the 13th century, and it did not replace the native hound as the main word for the animal until the 16th century. It has no known relatives of equal antiquity in other European languages, although several borrowed it in the 16th and 17th centuries for particular sorts of ‘dog’: German dogge ‘large dog, such as a mastiff’, for instance, French dogue ‘mastiff’, and Swedish dogg ‘bulldog’.
[dog etymology, dog origin, 英语词源]
black (n.): Old English blæc "the color black," also "ink," from noun use of black (adj.). From late 14c. as "dark spot in the pupil of the eye." The meaning "black person, African" is from 1620s (perhaps late 13c., and blackamoor is from 1540s). To be in the black (1922) is from the accounting practice of recording credits and balances in black ink.
For years it has been a common practice to use red ink instead of black in showing a loss or deficit on corporate books, but not until the heavy losses of 1921 did the contrast in colors come to have a widely understood meaning. ["Saturday Evening Post," July 22, 1922]
casualty (n.): early 15c., "chance, accident; incidental charge," from casual (adj.) on model of royalty, penalty, etc. Casuality had some currency 16c.-17c. but is now obsolete. Meaning "losses in numbers from a military or other troop" is from late 15c. Meaning "an individual killed, wounded, or lost in battle" is from 1844.
clean (v.): mid-15c., "make clean," from clean (adj.). Related: Cleaned; cleaning. From clean out "clean by emptying" comes sense of "to leave bare" (1844); cleaned-out "left penniless by losses" is from 1812.
fir (n.): late 14c., from Old Norse fyri- "fir" or Old Danish fyr, both from Proto-Germanic *furkhon (cognates: Old High German foraha, German Föhre "fir"), from PIE root *perkwu-, originally meaning "oak," also "oak forest," but never "wood" (cognates: Sanskrit paraktah "the holy fig tree," Hindi pargai "the evergreen oak," Latin quercus "oak," Lombardic fereha "a kind of oak"). Old English had a cognate form in furhwudu "pine wood" (only in glosses, for Latin pinus), but the modern English word is more likely from Scandinavian and in Middle English fyrre glosses Latin abies "fir," which is of obscure origin.

According to Indo-Europeanists Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, "The semantics of the term clearly points to a connection between 'oak' and mountainous regions, which is the basis for the ancient European term applied to forested mountains" (such as Gothic fairgunni "mountainous region," Old English firgen "mountain forest," Middle High German Virgunt "mountain forest; Sudetes"). In the period 3300 B.C.E. to 400 B.C.E., conifers and birches gradually displaced oaks in northern European forests. "Hence it is no surprise that in the early history of the Germanic languages the ancient term for mountain oak and oak forest shifts to denote conifers and coniferous forests." [Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, Vjaceslav V. Ivanov, "Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans," Berlin, 1994]
gloss (n.2): "word inserted as an explanation, translation, or definition," c. 1300, glose (modern form from 1540s; earlier also gloze), from Late Latin glossa "obsolete or foreign word," one that requires explanation; later extended to the explanation itself, from Greek glossa (Ionic), glotta (Attic) "language, a tongue; word of mouth, hearsay," also "obscure or foreign word, language," also "mouthpiece," literally "the tongue" (as the organ of speech), from PIE *glogh- "thorn, point, that which is projected" (source also of Old Church Slavonic glogu "thorn," Greek glokhis "barb of an arrow").

Glosses were common in the Middle Ages, usually rendering Hebrew, Greek, or Latin words into vernacular Germanic, Celtic, or Romanic. Originally written between the lines, later in the margins. By early 14c. in a bad sense, "deceitful explanation, commentary that disguises or shifts meaning." This sense probably has been colored by gloss (n.1). Both glossology (1716) and glottology (1841) have been used in the sense "science of language."
glossary (n.): "collected explanations of words (especially those not in ordinary use), a book of glosses," mid-14c., from Latin glossarium "collection of glosses," from Greek glossarion, diminutive of glossa "obsolete or foreign word" (see gloss (n.2)). Related: Glossarial.
glossator (n.): "writer of glosses," late 14c., from Medieval Latin glossator, from Latin glossa (see gloss (n.2)). Also in same sense were glosser (c. 1600), glossographer (c. 1600), glossist (1640s), glossarist (1774), glossographist (1774).
glosso-: before vowels gloss-, word-forming element meaning "tongue," from Greek glosso-, used as a comb. form of glossa (Attic glotta) "tongue" (see gloss (n.2)). Also sometimes meaning "gloss, word inserted as explanation," as in glossography "the writing of glosses."
Hyades: star cluster in constellation Taurus, late 14c., from Greek Hyades, popularly explained as "rain-bringers" (from hyein "to rain"), because wet weather supposedly began coincidentally with their heliacal rising, but in fact probably from hys "swine" (the popular Latin word for them was Suculae "little pigs"). Grimm ("Teutonic Mythology") lists the Anglo-Saxon glosses of Hyades as Raedgastran, Raedgasnan, Redgaesrum.
loss (n.): Old English los "loss, destruction," from Proto-Germanic *lausa- (see lose). The modern word, however, probably evolved 14c. with a weaker sense, from lost, the original past participle of lose. Phrase at a loss (1590s) originally refers to hounds losing the scent. To cut (one's) losses is from 1885, originally in finance.
passion (n.): late 12c., "sufferings of Christ on the Cross," from Old French passion "Christ's passion, physical suffering" (10c.), from Late Latin passionem (nominative passio) "suffering, enduring," from past participle stem of Latin pati "to suffer, endure," possibly from PIE root *pe(i)- "to hurt" (see fiend).

Sense extended to sufferings of martyrs, and suffering generally, by early 13c.; meaning "strong emotion, desire" is attested from late 14c., from Late Latin use of passio to render Greek pathos. Replaced Old English þolung (used in glosses to render Latin passio), literally "suffering," from þolian (v.) "to endure." Sense of "sexual love" first attested 1580s; that of "strong liking, enthusiasm, predilection" is from 1630s. The passion-flower so called from 1630s.
The name passionflower -- flos passionis -- arose from the supposed resemblance of the corona to the crown of thorns, and of the other parts of the flower to the nails, or wounds, while the five sepals and five petals were taken to symbolize the ten apostles -- Peter ... and Judas ... being left out of the reckoning. ["Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1885]
red ink (n.): "financial losses," 1929, from the red ink traditionally used to indicate debits in accounts.
sea (n.): Old English sæ "sheet of water, sea, lake, pool," from Proto-Germanic *saiwaz (cognates: Old Saxon seo, Old Frisian se, Middle Dutch see, Swedish sjö), of unknown origin, outside connections "wholly doubtful" [Buck]. Meaning "large quantity" (of anything) is from c. 1200. Meaning "dark area of the moon's surface" is attested from 1660s (see mare (n.2)).

Germanic languages also use the general Indo-European word (represented by English mere (n.)), but have no firm distinction between "sea" and "lake," either by size, by inland or open, or by salt vs. fresh. This may reflect the Baltic geography where the languages are thought to have originated. The two words are used more or less interchangeably in Germanic, and exist in opposite senses (such as Gothic saiws "lake," marei "sea;" but Dutch zee "sea," meer "lake"). Compare also Old Norse sær "sea," but Danish sø, usually "lake" but "sea" in phrases. German See is "sea" (fem.) or "lake" (masc.). The single Old English word sæ glosses Latin mare, aequor, pontus, pelagus, and marmor.

Phrase sea change "transformation" is attested from 1610, first in Shakespeare ("The Tempest," I.ii). Sea anemone is from 1742; sea legs is from 1712; sea level from 1806; sea urchin from 1590s. At sea in the figurative sense of "perplexed" is attested from 1768, from literal sense of "out of sight of land" (c. 1300).
siren (n.): mid-14c., "sea nymph who by her singing lures sailors to their destruction," from Old French sereine (12c., Modern French sirène) and directly from Latin Siren (Late Latin Sirena), from Greek Seiren ["Odyssey," xii.39 ff.], one of the Seirenes, mythical sisters who enticed sailors to their deaths with their songs, also in Greek "a deceitful woman," perhaps literally "binder, entangler," from seira "cord, rope."

Meaning "device that makes a warning sound" (on an ambulance, etc.) first recorded 1879, in reference to steamboats, perhaps from similar use of the French word. Figurative sense of "one who sings sweetly and charms" is recorded from 1580s. The classical descriptions of them were mangled in medieval translations and glosses, resulting in odd notions of what they looked like.