harvestyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[harvest 词源字典]
harvest: [OE] The idea underlying the word harvest is of ‘plucking, gathering, cropping’ – it comes ultimately from Indo-European *karp-, which also produced Greek karpós ‘fruit, crop, harvest’ (whence English carpel [19]) and Latin carpere ‘pluck’ (source of English carpet, excerpt, and scarce) – but its original meaning in English was ‘time of gathering crops’ rather than ‘act of gathering crops’.

Indeed, until as recently as the 18th century it was used as the name for the season now known as autumn (as its German relative herbst still is), and it was not until the 16th century that the present-day senses ‘act of gathering crops’ and ‘crops gathered’ began to develop.

=> carpet, excerpt, scarce[harvest etymology, harvest origin, 英语词源]
laughyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
laugh: [OE] The word laugh is ultimately onomatopoeic, imitative of the sound of laughter. It goes back to Indo-European *klak-, *klōk-, which also produced Greek klóssein, a verb denoting the clucking of hens, and Latin clangere ‘sound’ (source of English clangor [16]). Its Germanic descendants were *khlakh-, *khlōkh-, from which come German and Dutch lachen, Swedish and Danish le, and English laugh.
=> clangor
psalmyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
psalm: [OE] The Greek verb psállein originally meant ‘pluck’, but it was extended figuratively to ‘pluck harpstrings’, and hence ‘sing to the accompaniment of the harp’. From it was derived the noun psalmós ‘harp-song’, which was used in the Greek Septuagint to render Hebrew mizmōr ‘song (of the sort sung to the harp by David)’. It passed into Old English via late Latin psalmus. Another derivative of Greek psállein was psaltérion ‘stringed instrument played by plucking’, which has given English psalter [OE] and psaltery [13].
spinetyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
spinet: [17] A spinet is a sort of small harpsichord. English acquired the term via early modern French espinette from Italian spinetta, and one version of its origin is that it came from the name of one Giovanni Spinetti, a Venetian who supposedly invented the instrument at the beginning of the 16th century. A more prosaic story is that it was a diminutive form of spina ‘thorn’ (a relative of English spine), the allusion being to the plucking of the strings with thornlike quills.
Byronic (adj.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1823, pertaining to or resembling British poet George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824).
Perfect she was, but as perfection is
Insipid in this naughty world of ours,
Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss
Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers,
Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss
(I wonder how they got through the twelve hours),
Don Jose like a lineal son of Eve,
Went plucking various fruit without her leave.

[from "Don Juan"]
chuckle (v.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1590s, frequentative of Middle English chukken "make a clucking noise" (late 14c.), of echoic origin. It originally meant "noisy laughter." Related: Chuckled; chuckling.
cluck (v.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English cloccian originally echoic. Compare Turkish culuk, one of the words for "turkey;" Greek klozein, Latin glocire, German glucken. Related: Clucked; clucking.
defloration (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
late 14c., "culling of the finest passages from books," from Old French desfloracion (14c.), from Latin deflorationem "plucking of flowers," also "taking of (a woman's) virginity," noun of action from past participle stem of deflorare (see deflower). Compare also anthology. Also used in Middle English with reference to virginity from c. 1400.
pluck (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
c. 1400, "act of plucking," from pluck (v.). Meaning "courage, boldness" (1785), originally in pugilism slang, is a figurative use from earlier meaning "heart, viscera" (1610s) as that which is "plucked" from slaughtered livestock. Perhaps influenced by figurative use of the verb in pluck up (one's courage, etc.), attested from c. 1300.
pluck (v.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
late Old English ploccian, pluccian "pull off, cull," from West Germanic *plokken (cognates: Middle Low German plucken, Middle Dutch plocken, Dutch plukken, Flemish plokken, German pflücken), perhaps from Vulgar Latin *piluccare (source of Old French peluchier, late 12c.; Italian piluccare), a frequentative, ultimately from Latin pilare "pull out hair," from pilus "hair" (see pile (n.3)). But despite the similarities, OED finds difficulties with this and cites gaps in historical evidence. Related: Plucked; plucking.
To pluck a rose, an expression said to be used by women for going to the necessary house, which in the country usually stands in the garden. [F. Grose, "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1785]
This euphemistic use is attested from 1610s. To pluck up "summon up" is from c. 1300.
psalm (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English psealm, salm, partly from Old French psaume, saume, partly from Church Latin psalmus, from Greek psalmos "song sung to a harp," originally "performance on stringed instrument; a plucking of the harp" (compare psaltes "harper"), from psallein "play on a stringed instrument, pull, twitch" (see feel (v.)).

Used in Septuagint for Hebrew mizmor "song," especially the sort sung by David to the harp. Related: Psalmodize; psalmody. After some hesitation, the pedantic ps- spelling prevailed in English, as it was in many neighboring languages (German, French, etc.), but English is almost alone in not pronouncing the p-.
snapdragon (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
garden plant, 1570s, from snap (n.) + dragon. So called from fancied resemblance of antirrhinum flowers to a dragon's mouth. As the name of a Christmas game of plucking raisins from burning brandy and eating them alight, from 1704.
carphologyyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
"Plucking at the bedclothes by a delirious patient", Mid 19th century: from Greek karphologia, from karphos 'straw' + legein 'collect'.