英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

amanuensis [amanuensis 词源字典]: amanuensis: see manual
[amanuensis etymology, amanuensis origin, 英语词源]
answer: answer: [OE] Etymologically, the word answer contains the notion of making a sworn statement rebutting a charge. It comes from a prehistoric West and North Germanic compound *andswarō; the first element of this was the prefix *and- ‘against’, related to German ent- ‘away, un-’ and to Greek anti-, source of English anti-; and the second element came from the same source as English swear.

In Old English, the Germanic compound became andswaru (noun) and andswarian (verb) ‘reply’, which by the 14th century had been reduced to answer. The synonymous respond has a similar semantic history: Latin respondēre meant ‘make a solemn promise in return’, hence ‘reply’. And, as another element in the jigsaw, Swedish ansvar means ‘responsibility’ – a sense echoed by English answerable.
=> swear
censer: censer: see incense
census: census: see excise
commensurate: commensurate: see measure
compensate: compensate: see ponder
conscience: conscience: [13] Latin conscīre meant ‘be mutually aware’. It was a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘with, together’ and scīre ‘know’ (source of English science). To ‘know something with oneself’ implied, in a neutral sense, ‘consciousness’, but also a moral awareness, a mental differentiation between right and wrong, and hence the derived noun conscientia carried both these meanings, via Old French, into English (the more general, amoral, ‘consciousness’ died out in the 18th century).

A parallel Latin formation, using *sci-, the base of scīre, was conscius ‘aware’, acquired by English in the 17th century as conscious. Conscientious is also a 17th-century borrowing, ultimately from Latin conscientiōsus.
=> science
consecutive: consecutive: see sequence
consent: consent: [13] The notion underlying ‘giving one’s consent’ is ‘feeling together’ – that is, ‘agreeing’, and hence ‘giving approval or permission’. The word comes from Old French consente, a derivative of the verb consentir. This was a descendant of Latin consentīre ‘agree’, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and sentīre ‘feel’ (source of English sense, sentence, sentiment, etc). Consensus, originally the past participle of Latin consentīre, was borrowed into English in the 19th century.
=> consensus, sense, sentence, sentiment
consequence: consequence: see sequence
conserve: conserve: [14] Latin servāre meant ‘keep, preserve’ (it was not related to servus ‘slave’, source of English serve and servant). Among the compounds formed from it were praeservāre ‘guard in advance’ and, using the intensive prefix com-, conservāre. This passed into English via Old French conserver. Amongst its derivatives are conservation [14], conservative [14] (first used in the modern political sense by J Wilson Croker in 1830), and conservatory [16] (whose French original, conservatoire, was reborrowed in the 18th century in the sense ‘musical academy’).
=> observe, preserve, reserve
consider: consider: [14] Etymologically, consider means ‘observe the stars’. Amongst the most popular of ancient Roman methods of divination was astrology, and so the Latin verb consīderāre was coined (from the intensive prefix com- and sīdus ‘star’, source of English sidereal) to describe the activity of carefully noting the stars’ courses for the purpose of drawing auguries.

From ‘observing stars’ it soon broadened out in meaning to simply ‘observe’, and hence figuratively ‘think over something’, but the sense ‘have an opinion’ seems to be an English development of the 16th century. English acquired the word via Old French considerer, but borrowed considerable directly from Latin consīderābilis; the modern sense ‘large in amount’ arose in the mid-17th century, on the basis of an earlier ‘worthy of consideration because of great quantity’.
=> desire, sidereal
consign: consign: see sign
consist: consist: [16] Latin consistere meant originally ‘stand still, be firmly in place’. It was a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and sistere ‘place’ (a relative of Latin stāre, which entered into a parallel compound to form constāre ‘stand firm’, source of English constant [14]). The concrete concept of ‘standing firm’ passed into the more abstract ‘exist’, and hence ‘have a particular kind of existence, have particular inherent qualities’. By the time English borrowed the verb it had come to mean ‘be composed of’.
=> constant, constitute
console: console: [14] Console means literally ‘offer solace’. It comes from Latin consōlārī, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and sōlārī ‘comfort’ (source of the Latin noun sōlātium, from which English gets solace [13]). English acquired it either directly, or via French consoler. The Latin agent noun derived from consōlārī was consōlātor ‘comforter’, which passed into French as consolateur. This came to be used as an architectural term for a carved human figure supporting a cornice, shelf, etc, and was eventually shortened to console; this was borrowed into English in the 18th century.
=> solace
consonant: consonant: [14] Etymologically, consonant means ‘sounding together’. It comes via Old French consonant from Latin consonāns, the present participle of consonāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and sonāre ‘sound’. Its application to particular speech sounds, contrasted with ‘vowels’, comes from the notion that they were ‘pronounced together with’ vowels, rather than independently.
=> sonorous, sound
consort: consort: see sort
conspire: conspire: see spirit
constable: constable: [13] The late Latin comes stabulī was an officer in charge of the stables (comes is the source of the English title count, and stabulum is the ancestor of English stable). From the comparatively lowly status of head groom, the job gradually grew in importance until Old French conestable was used for the principal officer of the household of the early French kings. In the 14th century the title was adopted for the Constable of England. On a less exalted level, the word has also been used since the 14th century for someone appointed to uphold law and order, and was applied to police officers when they were called into being in the 1830s.
=> count, stable
constant: constant: see consist
consternation: consternation: see strata
constipation: constipation: [15] Latin constīpātiō originally meant ‘condition of being closely packed or compressed’. Its English descendant constipation was briefly used in that literal sense in the 17th and 18th centuries, but for the most part it has been a medical term: at first for constriction of some internal organ, blood vessel, etc, and from the mid-16th century for impaired bowel function. The Latin past participle constīpātus passed into Old French as costive, which English acquired, via an unrecorded Anglo-Norman *costif ‘constipated’ [14].
=> costive, stevedore, stiff
constitute: constitute: [15] Etymologically, that which is constituted is that which is ‘caused to stand’ or ‘set up’. The word comes from the past participle of Latin constituere ‘fix, establish’, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and statuere ‘set up’ (source of English statute). This was a derivative of Latin status (whence English state and status), which itself began life as the past participle of stāre ‘stand’ (a relative of English stand). The derivative constituent [17] comes (partly via French) from the Latin present participle constituēns.
=> stand, statue, status, statute
constrain: constrain: see strain
construct: construct: [17] Construct comes from the present participle of Latin construere ‘pile up together, build’, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- and struere ‘pile up’ (source of English destroy and structure). English acquired the same verb somewhat earlier, in the 14th century, in the form construe.
=> construe, destroy, structure
consult: consult: [17] The -sult element of consult represents a prehistoric Indo-European *sal-, which may be related to Sanskrit sar- ‘go’. It was used with the prefix com- ‘together’ to form the Latin verb consulere ‘discuss, consult’. An altered form developed, consultāre denoting repeated action, and this was the source, via French consulter of the English verb. Related to Latin consulere were the nouns consul, borrowed into English in the 14th century, and consilium, ultimate source of English counsel [13].
=> consul, counsel
consummate: consummate: see sum
counsel: counsel: see consult
demonstrate: demonstrate: see monster
dimension: dimension: see measure
dispense: dispense: [14] Dispense comes ultimately from Latin dispendere ‘weigh out’ (partial source of English spend). This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘away’ and pendere ‘weigh’, a relative of pendēre ‘hang’, from which English gets pendulum, pendant, and penthouse. It had a derivative, dispensāre, denoting repeated action: hence ‘pay out, distribute’, senses which passed into English via Old French dispenser. In medieval Latin dispensāre also came to mean ‘administer justice’, and hence ‘exempt, condone’; this was the source of the English usage dispense with ‘do without’.
=> pendulum, pendant, penthouse, spend
ensconce: ensconce: see sconce
ensemble: ensemble: see similar
ensign: ensign: see sign
ensue: ensue: see sue
ensure: ensure: see insure
extrinsic: extrinsic: see intrinsic
forensic: forensic: see forum
hansom: hansom: [19] The hansom cab, the taxi of the second half of the 19th century, was the brainchild of James Aloysius Hansom (1803– 82), an architect, whose other main claim to fame is that he designed Birmingham town hall. In 1834 he took out a patent for a Safety Cab, which included many features incorporated into the hansom cab when it came into general use in the late 1840s. In the 1890s the word was used as a verb: ‘To think that I … a raging Democrat, should be hansoming it to and fro between my Ladies and Honourables’, Sabine Baring-Gould Armine 1890.
immense: immense: see measure
incense: incense: English has two distinct words incense, but both come ultimately from the same source. The noun, ‘aromatic burnt substance’ [13], comes via Old French encens from late Latin incensum, a noun use of the verb incendere ‘set fire to’ (source of English incendiary [17]). This in turn was formed from a derivative of candēre ‘glow’ (source of English candle). (From encens was derived Old French censier, which passed into English via Anglo-Norman as censer [13].) Besides the literal ‘set fire to’, incendere was used figuratively for ‘enrage’, which English acquired as the verb incense [15] via Old French.
=> censer, incendiary
insect: insect: [17] The Greek word for ‘insect’ was éntomon (source of English entomology [18]). It was derived from entémnein ‘cut up’, a compound verb formed from en- ‘in’ and témnein ‘cut’ (a close relative of English tome), and denoted literally ‘creature divided up into segments’. The term was translated literally into Latin as insectum (originally the past participle of insecāre, a compound verb formed from inand secāre ‘cut’), and seems to have been introduced into English in Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny’s Natural History 1601.
=> section
insert: insert: see series
inside: inside: [16] Inside (a compound, of course, of in and side) was originally a noun, meaning ‘inner surface’ (‘Solomon builded the walls on the inside with Cedar timber’, Miles Coverdale’s translation of I Kings 6:15 1535), and it was not used as an adjective until the early 17th century – by Shakespeare, in fact. Adverbial and prepositional use are more recent still, from around the end of the 18th century.
=> side
insidious: insidious: see session
insignia: insignia: see sign
insist: insist: see statue
insouciant: insouciant: see solicit
inspire: inspire: see spirit
instal: instal: [16] To instal someone was originally literally to put them ‘into a stall’. The word comes from medieval Latin installāre, a compound verb based on the noun stallum ‘stall’, and referred originally to the formal induction of someone into an office by ceremonially placing them in a seat or ‘stall’, such as the choir stall of a cathedral. The instalof instalment [18], incidentally, is a different word, although the two are ultimately related.

It is an alteration of an earlier estallment ‘arrangement for payment’, which came from Anglo-Norman estaler ‘fix payments’. This was a derivative of estal ‘fixed position’, which was borrowed from Old High German stal ‘place’ (source also of medieval Latin stallum).
=> instalment, stall