英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

ought: ought: [OE] Ought began life as the past tense of owe, but the two have diverged widely over the centuries. The Old English ancestor of owe was āgan, and its past form was āhte. This originally shared all the meanings of its parent verb, of course, and continued to do so well into the 17th century (‘He said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound’, Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV 1596). Indeed, it survived dialectally until comparatively recently. But steadily since the 1600s its role as a quasi-modal auxiliary verb, denoting ‘obligation’, has come to the fore.
=> owe
Whitsun: Whitsun: [OE] Whitsun is etymologically ‘white Sunday’. The name comes from the ancient tradition of clothing newly baptized people in white on the feast of Pentecost. The abbreviated form Whit began to be used with other days of the week (such as Whit Monday) in the 16th century, but its broader modern usage (as in Whit week, Whit bank holiday, etc) did not emerge until the end of the 19th century.
=> sunday, white
Cheshire: 1086, Cestre Scire, from Chester + scir "district" (see shire). Cheshire cat and its proverbial grin are attested from 1770, but the signification is obscure.
I made a pun the other day, and palmed it upon Holcroft, who grinned like a Cheshire cat. (Why do cats grin in Cheshire?--Because it was once a county palatine, and the cats cannot help laughing whenever they think of it, though I see no great joke in it.) I said that Holcroft, on being asked who were the best dramatic writers of the day, replied, "HOOK AND I." Mr Hook is author of several pieces, Tekeli, &c. You know what hooks and eyes are, don't you? They are what little boys do up their breeches with. [Charles Lamb, letter to Thomas Manning, Feb. 26, 1808]
correspondent (n.): "one who communicates with another by letters," 1620s, from correspondent (adj.). The newspaper sense is from 1711.
THE life of a newspaper correspondent, as may naturally be supposed, is one of alternate cloud and sunshine--one day basking in an Andalusian balcony, playing a rubber at the club on the off-nights of the Opera, being very musical when the handsome Prima Donna sings, and very light fantastic toeish when the lively Prima Ballerina dances; another day roughing it over the Balkan, amid sleet and snow, or starving at the tail of an ill-conditioned army, and receiving bullets instead of billets-doux. ["New Monthly Magazine," vol. 95, 1852, p.284]
gimmick (n.): 1910, American English, perhaps an alteration of gimcrack, or an anagram of magic.
In a hotel at Muscatine, Iowa, the other day I twisted the gimmick attached to the radiator, with the intention of having some heat in my Nova Zemblan booth. ["Domestic Engineering," January 8, 1910]
other (adj.): Old English oþer "the second" (adj.), also as a pronoun, "one of the two, other," from Proto-Germanic *antharaz (cognates: Old Saxon athar, Old Frisian other, Old Norse annarr, Middle Dutch and Dutch ander, Old High German andar, German ander, Gothic anþar "other").

These are from PIE *an-tero-, variant of *al-tero- "the other of two" (source of Lithuanian antras, Sanskrit antarah "other, foreign," Latin alter), from root *al- (1) "beyond" (see alias (adv.)) + adjectival comparative suffix *-tero-. The Old English, Old Saxon, and Old Frisian forms show "a normal loss of n before fricatives" [Barnhart]. Meaning "different" is mid-13c.

Sense of "second" was detached from this word in English (which uses second, from Latin) and German (zweiter, from zwei "two") to avoid ambiguity. In Scandinavian, however, the second floor is still the "other" floor (Swedish andra, Danish anden). Also compare Old English oþergeara "next year."

The other woman "a woman with whom a man begins a love affair while he is already committed" is from 1855. The other day originally (mid-12c.) was "the next day;" later (c. 1300) "yesterday;" and now, loosely, "a day or two ago" (early 15c.). Phrase other half in reference to either the poor or the rich, is recorded from c. 1600.
La moitié du monde ne sçayt comment l'aultre vit. [Rabelais, "Pantagruel," 1532]
psychopath (n.): 1885, in the criminal psychology sense, a back-formation from psychopathic.
The Daily Telegraph had, the other day, a long article commenting on a Russian woman who had murdered a little girl. A Dr. Balinsky prevailed upon the jury to give a verdict of acquittal, because she was a "psychopath." The Daily Telegraph regards this term as a new coinage, but it has been long known amongst Spiritualists, yet in another sense. ["The Medium and Daybreak," Jan. 16, 1885]
The case alluded to, and the means of acquittal, were briefly notorious in England and brought the word into currency in the modern sense.
yester-: Old English geostran "yesterday," from Proto-Germanic *gester- (cognates: Old High German gestaron, German gestern "yesterday," Old Norse gær "tomorrow, yesterday," Gothic gistradagis "tomorrow"), originally "the other day" (reckoned from "today," either backward or forward), from PIE root *dhgh(y)es- "yesterday" (cognates: Sanskrit hyah, Avestan zyo, Persian di, Greek khthes, Latin heri, Old Irish indhe, Welsh doe "yesterday;" Latin hesternus "of yesterday").
Ember day: "Any of a number of days reserved for fasting and prayer in the Western Christian Church. Ember days traditionally comprise the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday following St Lucy’s Day (13 December), the first Sunday in Lent, Pentecost (Whitsun), and Holy Cross Day (14 September), though other days are observed locally", Old English ymbren, perhaps an alteration of ymbryne 'period', from ymb 'about' + ryne 'course', perhaps influenced in part by ecclesiastical Latin quatuor tempora 'four periods' (on which the equivalent German Quatember is based).