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deer [deer 词源字典]: deer: [OE] In Old English, dēor meant ‘animal’ in general, as opposed to ‘human being’ (as its modern Germanic relatives, German tier, Dutch dier, and Swedish djur, still do). Apparently connected forms in some other Indo-European languages, such as Lithuanian dusti ‘gasp’ and Church Slavonic dychati ‘breathe’, suggest that it comes via a prehistoric Germanic *deuzom from Indo-European *dheusóm, which meant ‘creature that breathes’ (English animal and Sanskrit prānin- ‘living creature’ have similar semantic origins).

Traces of specialization in meaning to ‘deer’ occur as early as the 9th century (although the main Old English word for ‘deer’ was heorot, source of modern English hart), and during the Middle English period it became firmly established, driving out ‘animal’ by the 15th century.
[deer etymology, deer origin, 英语词源]
frontispiece: frontispiece: [16] The final syllable of frontispiece has no etymological connection with piece. It comes from *spic-, a root denoting ‘see’ which is also represented in conspicuous and spectator. Here, as in the related auspices, its particular application is ‘divination by observation’. Added to Latin frōns ‘forehead’ it produced late Latin frontispicium, which originally meant ‘judgment of character through interpretation of facial features’.

Gradually it weakened semantically through ‘face’ to simply ‘front part’, and when English first acquired it, it was used for the ‘principal façade of a building’ (‘an indiscreet builder, who preferreth the care of his frontispiece before the maine foundation’, Richard Brathwait, English Gentleman 1630). By the 17th century, however, the word’s modern meaning ‘illustration facing the title page’ was becoming established. (Spellings based on an erroneous association with piece, incidentally, occur as early as the 16th century.)
=> auspices, conspicuous, front, inspect, spectator, spy
billion (n.): 1680s, from French billion (originally byllion in Chuquet's unpublished "Le Triparty en la Science des Nombres," 1484; copied by De la Roche, 1520); see bi- "two" + million. A million million in Britain and Germany (numeration by groups of sixes), which was the original sense; subsequently altered in French to "a thousand million" (numeration by groups of threes) and picked up in that form in U.S., "due in part to French influence after the Revolutionary War" [David E. Smith, "History of Mathematics," 1925]. France then reverted to the original meaning in 1948. British usage is truer to the etymology, but U.S. sense is said to be increasingly common there in technical writing.
In Italian arithmetics from the last quarter of the fifteenth century the words bilione or duilione, trilione, quadrilione or quattrilione, quintilione, cinquilione, or quinquilione, sestione or sestilione, settilione, ottilione, noeilione and decilione occur as common abbreviations of due volte millioni, tre volte millione, etc. In other countries these words came into use much later, although one French writer, Nicolas Chuquet, mentions them as early as 1484, in a book not printed until 1881. The Italians had, besides, another system of numeration, proceeding by powers of a thousand. The French, who like other northern peoples, took most if not all their knowledge of modern or Arabic arithmetic from the Italians, early confounded the two systems of Italian numeration, counting in powers of a thousand, but adopting the names which properly belong to powers of a million.
For a time in Britain gillion (1961), based on giga-, was tried as "a thousand million" to avoid ambiguity.
result (v.): early 15c., "occur as a result, arise as a consequence," from Medieval Latin resultare "to result," in classical Latin "to spring forward, rebound," frequentative of past participle of resilire "to rebound" (see resilience). Related: Resulted; resulting.