英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

athlete [athlete 词源字典]: athlete: [18] The etymological idea underlying athlete is ‘competing for a prize’. Greek āthlon meant ‘award, prize’, whence the verb athlein ‘compete for a prize’. Derived from this was the noun athlētés ‘competitor’. The context in which the word was most commonly used in Greek was that of the public games, where competitors took part in races, boxing matches, etc. Hence the gradual narrowing down of the meaning of athlete to ‘one who takes part in sports involving physical exercise’, and even further to ‘participant in track and field events’.
[athlete etymology, athlete origin, 英语词源]
bad (adj.): c. 1200, "inferior in quality;" early 13c., "wicked, evil, vicious," a mystery word with no apparent relatives in other languages.* Possibly from Old English derogatory term bæddel and its diminutive bædling "effeminate man, hermaphrodite, pederast," probably related to bædan "to defile." A rare word before 1400, and evil was more common in this sense until c. 1700. Meaning "uncomfortable, sorry" is 1839, American English colloquial.

Comparable words in the other Indo-European languages tend to have grown from descriptions of specific qualities, such as "ugly," "defective," "weak," "faithless," "impudent," "crooked," "filthy" (such as Greek kakos, probably from the word for "excrement;" Russian plochoj, related to Old Church Slavonic plachu "wavering, timid;" Persian gast, Old Persian gasta-, related to gand "stench;" German schlecht, originally "level, straight, smooth," whence "simple, ordinary," then "bad").

Comparative and superlative forms badder, baddest were common 14c.-18c. and used as recently as Defoe (but not by Shakespeare), but yielded to comparative worse and superlative worst (which had belonged to evil and ill).

As a noun, late 14c., "evil, wickedness." In U.S. place names, sometimes translating native terms meaning "supernaturally dangerous." Ironic use as a word of approval is said to be at least since 1890s orally, originally in Black English, emerging in print 1928 in a jazz context. It might have emerged from the ambivalence of expressions like bad nigger, used as a term of reproach by whites, but among blacks sometimes representing one who stood up to injustice, but in the U.S. West bad man also had a certain ambivalence:
These are the men who do most of the killing in frontier communities, yet it is a noteworthy fact that the men who are killed generally deserve their fate. [Farmer & Henley]
*Farsi has bad in more or less the same sense as the English word, but this is regarded by linguists as a coincidence. The forms of the words diverge as they are traced back in time (Farsi bad comes from Middle Persian vat), and such accidental convergences exist across many languages, given the vast number of words in each and the limited range of sounds humans can make to signify them. Among other coincidental matches with English are Korean mani "many," Chinese pei "pay," Nahuatl (Aztecan) huel "well," Maya hol "hole."
burning (adj.): Old English in the literal sense; c. 1300 figurative, present participle adjective from burn (v.)). Burning question matches French question brûlante, German brennende Frage. Burning bush is from Exodus III. Burning glass is attested from 1560s.
Congreve: in reference to rockets or matches, from Sir William Congreve (1772-1828).
fear (v.): Old English færan "to terrify, frighten," from a Proto-Germanic verbal form of the root of fear (n.). Cognates: Old Saxon faron "to lie in wait," Middle Dutch vaeren "to fear," Old High German faren "to plot against," Old Norse færa "to taunt."

Originally transitive in English; long obsolete in this sense but somewhat revived in digital gaming via "fear" spells, which matches the old sense "drive away by fear," attested early 15c. Meaning "feel fear" is late 14c. Related: Feared; fearing.
goalless (adj.): 1835, of journeys, etc., "without a fixed destination or purpose," from goal + -less. By 1903 of sports matches where nobody scores. Related: Goallessly; goallessness.
hot-foot: c. 1300 (adv.) "hastily," from hot + foot (n.). As a verb, from 1896. As the name of a prank played with matches, by 1934.
loco-foco (n.): "self-igniting cigar or match," 1839 (but presumably older), American English, of unknown origin, perhaps from a misapprehension of the meaning of the first element of locomotive as "self-" + Spanish fuego "fire." During one heated political meeting in N.Y., the lights went out and the delegates used such matches to relight them, thence the name loco-foco entered U.S. political jargon (1837), usually applied to a radical faction of the Democratic Party, but by the Whigs applied to all Democrats.
Promethean (adj.): 1580s, from Prometheus + -an. Before the introduction of modern matches (see lucifer), promethean was the name given (early 19c.) to small glass tubes full of sulphuric acid, surrounded by an inflammable mixture, which ignited when pressed and gave off light.
score (n.): late Old English scoru "twenty," from Old Norse skor "mark, notch, incision; a rift in rock," also, in Icelandic, "twenty," from Proto-Germanic *skura-, from PIE root *(s)ker- (1) "to cut" (see shear).

The connecting notion probably is counting large numbers (of sheep, etc.) with a notch in a stick for each 20. That way of counting, called vigesimalism, also exists in French: In Old French, "twenty" (vint) or a multiple of it could be used as a base, as in vint et doze ("32"), dous vinz et diz ("50"). Vigesimalism was or is a feature of Welsh, Irish, Gaelic and Breton (as well as non-IE Basque), and it is speculated that the English and the French picked it up from the Celts. Compare tally (n.).

The prehistoric sense of the Germanic word, then, likely was "straight mark like a scratch, line drawn by a sharp instrument," but in English this is attested only from c. 1400, along with the sense "mark made (on a chalkboard, etc.) to keep count of a customer's drinks in a tavern." This sense was extended by 1670s to "mark made for purpose of recording a point in a game or match," and thus "aggregate of points made by contestants in certain games and matches" (1742, originally in whist).

From the tavern-keeping sense comes the meaning "amount on an innkeeper's bill" (c. 1600) and thus the figurative verbal expression settle scores (1775). Meaning "printed piece of music" first recorded 1701, said to be from the practice of connecting related staves by scores of lines. Especially "music composed for a film" (1927). Meaning "act of obtaining narcotic drugs" is by 1951.

Scoreboard is from 1826; score-keeping- from 1905; newspaper sports section score line is from 1965; baseball score-card is from 1877.
tally (n.): mid-15c., "stick marked with notches to indicate amount owed or paid," from Anglo-French tallie (early 14c., Old French taille "notch in a piece of wood signifying a debt"), Anglo-Latin talea (late 12c.), from Medieval Latin tallia, from Latin talea "a cutting, rod, stick" (see tailor (n.), and compare sense history of score). Meaning "a thing that matches another" first recorded 1650s, from practice of splitting a tally lengthwise across the notches, debtor and creditor each retaining one of the halves; the usual method of keeping accounts before writing became general (the size of the notches varied with the amount). Sports sense of "a total score" is from 1856. Also in 19c. British provincial verbal expression live tally, make a tally bargain "live as husband and wife without marrying."
grand slam: "A set of major championships or matches in a particular sport in the same year, in particular tennis, golf, or rugby union", Early 19th century (as a term in cards, especially bridge): from slam (sense 4 of the noun).
vuvuzela: "A long horn blown by fans at soccer matches in South Africa", Perhaps from Zulu.