quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- apothecary




- apothecary: [14] Originally, an apothecary was simply a shopkeeper – the word comes via Old French from late Latin apothēcārius, which was based on Greek apothékē ‘storehouse’ (source, via French, of boutique [18] and via Spanish of bodega [19]), a derivative of the verb apotithénai ‘put away’ (formed from the prefix apo- ‘away’ and the verb tithénai ‘put’ – source of thesis).
By the time the word entered English it was reserved to shopkeepers who sold non-perishable groceries, such as spices – and herbal and other remedies. Gradually, apothecaries began to specialize more and more in drugs, so that in 1617 a formal separation took place between the Apothecaries’ Company of London and the Grocers’ Company. Apothecary remained the general term for a ‘druggist’ until about 1800, when chemist began to take over.
=> bodega, boutique, thesis - damp




- damp: [14] The familiar adjectival use of damp as ‘slightly wet’ is a comparatively recent development, from the 18th century. When the word was first borrowed into English, from Middle Low German damp, it was a noun meaning ‘vapour’ (an application which survives in fire-damp). It comes ultimately from a Germanic base *thump-. The first line of semantic development taken by the word in English was of a ‘noxious exhalation’ (including gas or even smoke, not just vapour), and this is reflected in its earliest adjectival use, in the late 16th century, meaning ‘dazed’, as if affected by such harmful fumes; ‘with looks downcast and damp’, John Milton, Paradise Lost 1667.
Another contemporary sense was ‘noxious’. But the 17th century saw the noun used more and more for specifically wet turbidity: ‘mist’, or simply ‘moisture’. And this formed the basis of the present-day adjectival sense.
- wife




- wife: [OE] Wife originally meant simply ‘woman’, but the semantic restriction to ‘married woman’ began in the Old English period and has become more and more firmly established as the centuries have passed. Of the word’s Germanic relatives, German weib has largely been replaced by frau, and Dutch wijf, Swedish vif, and Danish viv are no longer front-line words. It is not known what its ultimate source was. A woman is etymologically a ‘wife-man’, that is, a ‘womanperson’, a ‘female-person’.