英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

crabgrass (n.): c. 1600, from crab (n.1) + grass. Originally a marine grass of salt marshes; modern meaning is from 1743. Perhaps partly for its crooked form.
marshmallow (n.): Old English mersc-mealwe "kind of mallow plant (Althea officinalis) which grows near salt marshes;" from marsh + mallow. The confection (so called from 1877) originally was made from paste from the roots of this plant. The Greek word for the plant, althaea, is from althein "to heal."
moss (n.): Old English meos "moss," related to mos "bog," from Proto-Germanic *musan (cognates: Old High German mios, Danish mos, German Moos), also in part from Old Norse mosi "moss, bog," and Medieval Latin mossa "moss," from the same Germanic source, from PIE *meus- "damp," with derivatives referring to swamps and swamp vegetation (cognates: Latin muscus "moss," Lithuanian musai "mold, mildew," Old Church Slavonic muchu "moss").
Selden Moseþ þe Marbelston þat men ofte treden. ["Piers Plowman," 1362]
All the Germanic languages have the word in both senses, which is natural because moss is the characteristic plant of boggy places. It is impossible to say which sense is original. Scott (1805) revived 17c. moss-trooper "freebooter infesting Scottish border marshes."
shore (n.): "land bordering a large body of water," c. 1300, from an Old English word or from Middle Low German schor "shore, coast, headland," or Middle Dutch scorre "land washed by the sea," all probably from Proto-Germanic *skur-o- "cut," from PIE *(s)ker- (1) "to cut" (see shear (v.)).

According to etymologists originally with a sense of "division" between land and water. But if the word began on the North Sea coast of the continent, it might as well have meant originally "land 'cut off' from the mainland by tidal marshes" (compare Old Norse skerg "an isolated rock in the sea," related to sker "to cut, shear"). Old English words for "coast, shore" were strand (n.), waroþ, ofer. Few Indo-European languages have such a single comprehensive word for "land bordering water" (Homer uses one word for sandy beaches, another for rocky headlands). General application to "country near a seacoast" is attested from 1610s.
swamp (n.): c. 1500 (implied in swampwatyr "swamp-water"), of uncertain origin, perhaps [Barnhart] a dialectal survival from an Old English cognate of Old Norse svöppr "sponge, fungus," from Proto-Germanic *swampuz; but traditionally connected with Middle English sompe "morass, swamp," which probably is from Middle Dutch somp or Middle Low German sump "swamp" (see sump). All of these likely are ultimately related to each other, from PIE *swombho- "spongy; mushroom," via the notion of "spongy ground."
[B]y swamps then in general is to be understood any low grounds subject to inundations, distinguished from marshes, in having a large growth of timber, and much underwood, canes, reeds, wythes, vines, briers, and such like, so matted together, that they are in a great measure impenetrable to man or beast .... [Bernard Romans, "A Concise History of East and West Florida," 1775]
More popular in U.S. (swamp (n.) by itself is first attested 1624 in Capt. John Smith's description of Virginia). Swamp-oak is from 1680s, American English. Swamp Yankee "rural, rustic New Englander" is attested from 1941. Thornton's "American Glossary" (1912) has swamp-angel "dweller in a swamp," swamp-law "might makes right."
paludicolous: "Inhabiting marshes; specifically of or belonging to the suborder Paludicola of triclad turbellarian worms. Also occasionally: relating to or designating marshland as a habitat", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Robert Mayne (1808–1868). From paludi- + -colous, after scientific Latin paludicola.
palustral: "= palustrine", Mid 19th cent. From classical Latin palustris (also paluster) relating to a marsh, marshy, occurring in marshes (from palūs + -stris, suffix forming adjectives) + -al. Compare earlier palustrian adjective, palustrine.