quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- theatre



[theatre 词源字典] - theatre: [14] A theatre is etymologically a place for ‘looking at’ something. The word comes via Old French theatre and Latin theātrum from Greek théātron. This was derived from the verb theásthai ‘watch, look at’, whose base thea- also produced English theory. It was first used in English for the open-air amphitheatres of the ancient world; its application to contemporary playhouses dates from the end of the 16th century.
=> theory[theatre etymology, theatre origin, 英语词源] - football (n.)




- open-air game involving kicking a ball, c. 1400; in reference to the inflated ball used in the game, mid-14c. ("Ãe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe," Octavian I manuscript, c. 1350), from foot (n.) + ball (n.1). Forbidden in a Scottish statute of 1424. One of Shakespeare's insults is "you base foot-ball player" [Lear I.iv]. Ball-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems first to have risen to a national obsession in England, c. 1630. Figurative sense of "something idly kicked around, something subject to hard use and many vicissitudes" is by 1530s.
Rules of the game first regularized at Cambridge, 1848; soccer (q.v.) split off in 1863. The U.S. style (known to some in England as "stop-start rugby with padding") evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team's rules, was true U.S. football. Both were described as foot-ball at Princeton.
Then twenty-five of the best players in college were sent up to Brunswick to combat with the Rutgers boys. Their peculiar way of playing this game proved to Princeton an insurmountable difficulty; .... Two weeks later Rutgers sent down the same twenty-five, and on the Princeton grounds, November 13th, Nassau played her game; the result was joyous, and entirely obliterated the stigma of the previous defeat. ["Typical Forms of '71" by the Princeton University Class of '72, 1869]
- loggia (n.)




- "roofed galley used as an open-air room," 1742, from Italian loggia, from French loge (see lodge (n.)).
- pin-ball (n.)




- as a type of game, 1907, from pin (n.) + ball (n.1). Originally of types of open-air bowling and basketball variation where the goal was to knock down a pin or pins. Earlier still it meant "pin-cushion." The tabletop pin-ball machine is attested from 1937.
- stand (n.)




- Old English stand "a pause, delay, state of rest or inaction," from the root of stand (v.). Compare Dutch and German stand (n.). Sense of "action of standing or coming to a position" is attested from late 14c., especially in reference to fighting (1590s). Sense of "state of being unable to proceed" is from 1590s.
Meaning "place of standing, position" is from early 14c.; figurative sense is from 1590s. Meaning "raised platform for a hunter or sportsman" is attested from c. 1400. Meaning "raised platform for spectators at an open-air event" is from 1610s; meaning "piece of furniture on which something is to be set" is from 1690s. Sense of "stall or booth" is first recorded c. 1500. Military meaning "complete set" (of arms, colors, etc.) is from 1721, often a collective singular. Sense of "standing growth" (usually of of trees) is 1868, American English. Theatrical sense of "each stop made on a performance tour" is from 1896. The word formerly also was slang for "an erection" (1867).