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admonish [admonish 词源字典]

admonish: [14] In Middle English times this verb was amoneste. It came, via Old French amonester, from an assumed Vulgar Latin verb *admonestāre, an alteration of Latin admonēre (monēre meant ‘warn’, and came from the same source as English mind). The prefix ad- was reintroduced from Latin in the 15th century, while the -ish ending arose from a mistaken analysis of -este as some sort of past tense inflection; the t was removed when producing infinitive or present tense forms, giving spellings such as amonace and admonyss, and by the 16th century this final -is had become identified with and transformed into the more common -ish ending.
=> mind[admonish etymology, admonish origin, 英语词源]

be

be: [OE] There are four distinct components that go to make up the modern English verb be. The infinitive form be comes ultimately from an Indo-European base *bheu-, *bhu-, which also produced, by other routes, future and physical. Its Germanic descendant was *bu-, which signified on the one hand ‘dwell’ (from which we get booth, bower, byre, build, burly, byelaw, and the final element of neighbour), and on the other hand ‘grow, become’, which led to its adoption as part of the verb expressing ‘being’ (in Old English particularly with the future sense of ‘coming to be’). Am and is go back to the ancient Indo- European verb ‘be’, *es- or *s-, which has contributed massively to ‘be’ verbs throughout all Indo-European languages (third person present singulars Greek esti, Latin est, French est, German ist, Sanskrit ásti, Welsh ys, for example) The Indo-European first and third person singular forms were, respectively, ésmi and ésti.

For the present plural Old English used the related sind(on) (as found in Latin sunt, French sont, and German sind), but this died out in the 12th century, to be replaced by are, which comes from a Germanic base *ar- of unknown origin. From the same source is the now archaic second person singular art. The past tense forms was, were come ultimately from an Indo-European base *weswhich meant ‘dwell, remain’.

Related words in other Indo-European languages include Sanskrit vásati ‘dwell, remain’ and Gothic wisan ‘remain, continue’.
=> booth, bower, build, burly, byelaw, byre

bequeath

bequeath: [OE] Etymologically, what you bequeath is what you ‘say’ you will leave someone in your will. The word comes from Old English becwethan, a derivative of cwethan ‘say’, whose past tense cwæth gives us quoth (it is no relation to quote, by the way). The original sense ‘say, utter’ died out in the 13th century, leaving the legal sense of ‘transferring by will’ (first recorded in 1066).

The noun derivative of Old English cwethan in compounds was -cwiss. Hence we can assume there was an Old English noun *becwiss, although none is recorded. The first we hear of it is at the beginning of the 14th century, when it had unaccountably had a t added to it, producing what we now know as bequest.
=> bequest, quoth

bid

bid: [OE] Bid has a complicated history, for it comes from what were originally two completely distinct Old English verbs. The main one was biddan (past tense bæd) ‘ask, demand’, from which we get such modern English usages as ‘I bade him come in’. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *bithjan (source of German bitten ‘ask’), which was formed from the base *beth- (from which modern English gets bead).

But a contribution to the present nexus of meanings was also made by Old English bēodan (past tense bēad) ‘offer, proclaim’ (whence ‘bid at an auction’ and so on). This can be traced ultimately to an Indo- European base *bh(e)udh-, which gave Germanic *buth-, source also of German bieten ‘offer’ and perhaps of English beadle [13], originally ‘one who proclaims’.
=> bead, beadle

broker

broker: [14] Broker has no connection with the past tense of break. It comes from Anglo- Norman brocour ‘small trader’, but its ultimate origin is not clear. A variant Anglo-Norman form abrocour has fuelled speculation as to a link with Spanish alboroque ‘sealing of a bargain’ and Portuguese alborcar ‘barter’, which are presumably of Arabic origin (the alrepresenting the Arabic definite article); but other etymologists have sought to link the word with broach, as if the underlying sense were ‘someone who sells wine from [that is, by broaching] the cask’, and hence any ‘retailer’.

can

can: [OE] English has two distinct words can. The verb ‘be able to’ goes back via Old English cunnan and Germanic *kunnan to an Indo- European base *gn-, which also produced know. The underlying etymological meaning of can is thus ‘know’ or more specifically ‘come to know’, which survived in English until comparatively recently (in Ben Jonson’s The Magnetick Lady 1632, for example, we find ‘She could the Bible in the holy tongue’).

This developed into ‘know how to do something’, from which we get the current ‘be able to do something’. The past tense could comes ultimately from prehistoric Germanic *kuntha, via Old English cūthe (related to English uncouth) and late Middle English coude; the l is a 16th-century intrusion, based on the model of should and would. (Canny [16] is probably a derivative of the verb can, mirroring a much earlier but parallel formation cunning.) Can ‘container’ appears to come from a prehistoric Germanic *kannōn-.
=> canny, cunning, ken, know, uncouth

climb

climb: [OE] The original notion contained in climb seems not to have been so much ‘ascent’ as ‘holding on’. Old English climban came from a prehistoric West Germanic *klimban, a nasalized variant of the base which produced English cleave ‘adhere’. To begin with this must have meant strictly ‘go up by clinging on with the hands and feet’ – to ‘swarm up’, in fact – but already by the late Old English period we find it being used for ‘rising’ in general. The original past tense clamb, which died out in most areas in the 16th century, is probably related to clamp ‘fastening’ [14].
=> clamp, cleave

clove

clove: There are two distinct words clove in English. In clove of garlic [OE] the underlying notion is of ‘cutting’; the head of garlic is as it were ‘divided up’ into separate sections. The word goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *gleubh- ‘cut, carve’, which also produced English cleave and its now archaic past tense clove. Clove the spice [14] originated in the Old French phrase clou de girofle, which meant literally ‘nail of the clove-tree’.

The term ‘nail’ was applied to the tree’s dried unopened flower bud because of a perceived resemblance in shape. (French clou ‘nail’ comes from Latin clāvus, source of English cloy, and French girofle – whence English gillyflower [14], which originally meant ‘clove’ – goes back via medieval Latin caryophyllum to Greek karuóphullon, which literally meant ‘nut leaf’.)
=> cleave; cloy, gillyflower

could

could: [16] Could began life as cūthe, the past tense of Old English cunnan ‘can’. By Middle English times this had become couthe, and in the 14th century it developed to coude under the influence of the standard past tense ending (e)de. The l was introduced in the 16th century, to bring coude into line with would and should.
=> kith, uncouth

fell

fell: English has no fewer than four separate words fell, not counting the past tense of fall. Fell ‘cut down’ [OE] originated as the ‘causative’ version of fall – that is to say, it means literally ‘cause to fall’. It comes ultimately from prehistoric Germanic *falljan, causative of *fallan ‘fall’. Fell ‘animal’s skin’ [OE] goes back via Germanic *fellam (source also of English film) to Indo-European *pello- (whence Latin pellis ‘skin’, from which English gets pellagra [19], pellicle [16], and pelt ‘skin’ [15]). Fell ‘hill’ [13] was borrowed from Old Norse fjall ‘hill’; this seems to be related to German fels ‘rock’, whose ultimate ancestor was Indo-European *pels-.

And the adjective fell ‘fierce, lethal’ [13] was borrowed from Old French fel, ancestor of English felon.
=> fall; film, pelt; felon

flee

flee: [OE] Flee, like its close relatives German fliehe, Dutch vlieden, and Swedish and Danish fly, comes from a prehistoric Germanic *thleukhan, a word of unknown origin. In Old English, flee and fly had the same past tense and past participle (and indeed the same derivatives, represented in modern English by flight), and this, together with a certain similarity in meaning, has led to the two verbs being associated and often confused, but there is no reliable evidence that they are etymologically connected.

get

get: [13] Get, now one of the most pervasive of English words, has only been in the language for the (comparatively) short period of 800 years. It was borrowed from Old Norse geta (although a related, hundred-per-cent English -get, which occurs in beget and forget, dates back to Old English times). Both come via a prehistoric Germanic *getan from Indo-European *ghed-, which signified ‘seize’ (guess is ultimately from the same source). Gotten is often quoted as an American survival of a primeval past participle since abandoned by British English, but in fact the original past participle of got was getten, which lasted into the 16th century; gotten was a Middle English innovation, based on such models as spoken and stolen. Got originated as an abbreviated form of gotten, which in due course came to be used, on both sides of the Atlantic, as the past tense of the verb (replacing the original gat).
=> beget, forget, guess

go

go: [OE] Go is an ancient verb, traceable back to a prehistoric Indo-European base *ghēi- or *ghē-. This seems to have been relatively unproductive outside the Germanic languages (Sanskrit hā-, hī- ‘leave’ and Greek kikhánō ‘reach’ may be descendants of it), but it has provided the basic word for ‘move along, proceed’ in all the Germanic languages, including German gehen, Dutch gaan, Swedish gā, Danish gaa, and English go. In Old and Middle English its past tense was ēode, later yode, a word of uncertain origin, but from about 1500 this was replaced by went, originally the past tense of wend.

heel

heel: English has two separate words heel. The one that names the rear part of the foot [OE] comes ultimately from Germanic *khangkh-, which also produced English hock ‘quadruped’s joint corresponding to the human ankle’. From it was derived *khākhil-, source of Dutch hiel, Swedish häl, Danish hæl, and English heel. Heel ‘tilt, list’ [16] is probably descended from the Old English verb hieldan ‘incline’ (which survived dialectally into the 19th century), its -d mistaken as a past tense or past participle ending and removed to form a new infinitive. Hieldan itself came ultimately from the prehistoric Germanic adjective *khalthaz ‘inclined’.
=> hock

must

must: English has three words must. By far the commonest is of course the verb, ‘have to’ [OE], which originated in Old English as the past tense of the now obsolete mūt ‘may, must’. It has relatives in German muss and Dutch moet, but its ultimate origins are not known for certain (there may be some distant link with Germanic ‘measure’-words, such as English mete, suggesting a semantic progression from an original ‘time measured out for doing something’, through ‘have time to do something’, ‘be able to do something’, and ‘be allowed to do something’ to ‘have to do something’). Must ‘unfermented grape juice for making into wine’ [OE] comes from Latin mustum ‘new wine’, a noun use of the adjective mustus ‘new’. Mustard is a derivative.

And the esoteric must ‘sexual frenzy in elephants, camels, etc’ [19] comes via Urdu from Persian mast ‘drunk’.
=> mustard

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

owe

owe: [OE] Owe goes back to a prehistoric Indo- European base *oik-, *ik- denoting ‘possession’. Its Germanic descendant *aig- produced a range of ‘possession’-verbs, none of which now survives except Swedish äga, Danish eie, and English owe. In the Old English period this meant ‘possess’, but that sense was gradually taken over by the related own, and owe developed in the 12th century to ‘have to repay’. A more general notion of ‘obligation’ also emerged, which is now restricted to ought, originally the past tense of owe.
=> ought, own

quote

quote: [14] Latin quot meant ‘how many’. From it was derived the adjective quotus ‘of what number’, whose feminine form quota was used in post-classical times as a noun, denoting literally ‘how great a part’ – whence English quota [17]. Quotus also formed the basis of the medieval Latin verb quotāre ‘number’, which was used specifically for the practice of marking sections of text in manuscripts with numbers, as reference points.

English took the verb over as quote, and by the 16th century was using it for ‘cite’ or ‘refer to’. The derived unquote is first recorded in a letter by e e cummings, dated 1935. Also based on quot was Latin quotiēns ‘how many times’, which has given English quotient [15]; and quotidian ‘daily’ [14] goes back ultimately to a Latin compound formed from quotus and diēs ‘day’.

But the archaic quoth [OE], despite a certain similarity in form and sense, is not related; it comes from cwæth, the past tense of Old English cwethan ‘say’.
=> quota, quotient

saw

saw: Not counting the past tense of see, English has two words saw. The one meaning ‘toothed cutting tool’ [OE] comes from a prehistoric Germanic *sagō, a close relative of which produced German säge ‘saw’. This in turn was descended from an Indo-European base *sak-, *sek- ‘cut’, which also lies behind English section, segment, sickle, etc. The now seldom heard saw ‘saying, adage’ [OE] comes from a different prehistoric Germanic *sagō, which was derived from the verb *sagjan ‘say’ (ancestor of English say) and also produced Old Norse saga ‘narrative’ (source of English saga [18]).
=> section, segment, sickle; saga, say

shall

shall: [OE] The etymological meaning of shall is ‘owe’. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *skal-, *skul- which also produced German sollen ‘ought to’ and schuld ‘debt’. Its use in English as an auxiliary verb denoting future time evolved via the intermediate senses ‘ought to, must’ and ‘be to’. The notion of obligation survives in should, which originated as its past tense.
=> should

should

should: [OE] Should started life as the past tense of shall. It preserves the word’s original connotations of ‘obligation’ which have all but disappeared from shall.
=> shall

shrive

shrive: [OE] Shrive ‘hear someone’s confession’ goes back ultimately to Latin scrībere ‘write’ (source of English scribe, script, etc). This was borrowed into prehistoric West Germanic as *skrīban, whose direct descendants are German schreiben and Dutch schrijven ‘write’. But it also developed a specialized sense ‘prescribe penances’, and it is this that has given English shrive.

Today the word is best known in the form of shrove, its past tense, which is used in Shrove Tuesday [15] (an allusion to the practice of going to confession at the beginning of Lent), and the derived noun shrift ‘penance, confession’ [OE] (the expression short shrift originally referred to the short period of time allowed to someone about to be executed to say their confession).
=> scribe, script, shrift, shrove

sweep

sweep: [13] The Old English word for ‘sweep’ was swāpan, which evolved into Middle English swope. Modern English sweep, which began to emerge in the 13th century, probably came from the old past tense swepe, a descendant of Old English swēop. Swāpan itself came from a prehistoric Germanic base *swei- ‘swing, bend’, which also produced German schweifen ‘wander’ and English swift. Swipe [19] probably originated as a dialectal variant of sweep.
=> swift, swipe

wend

wend: [OE] Wend comes from the prehistoric Germanic base *wand-, *wend- ‘turn’, which also produced German and Dutch wenden, Swedish vända, and Danish vende ‘turn’ (and English wand and wander). It started off meaning ‘turn’ in English too, but it soon broadened out to ‘go’, and from the end of the 15th century its past form went has been used as the past tense of go.
=> wand, wander, wind

would

would: [OE] Would goes back to wold-, the Old English past tense of will. Its vowel is inherited from the Indo-European variant *wol- (as in German wollen ‘will, want’), rather than the *wel- that produced the English present form will. Its use as an auxiliary to form the conditional dates back to the Old English period.
=> will

abovementioned (adj.)

1707, from above and past tense of mention. Above-named is recorded from c. 1600.

aforethought (adj.)

1580s, from afore + past tense of think. Apparently an English loan-translation of Old French legalese word prepense (see prepense) in malice prepense "malice aforethought" (Coke).

alit

poetic past tense and past participle of alight (v.).

also-ran (n.)

1896, originally in reference to horse-races, from also + past tense of run (v.). Probably from the way non-placing horses were listed in race results.

aorist (n.)

1580s, the simple past tense of Greek verbs, from Greek aoristos (khronos) "indefinite (tense)," from privative prefix a- "not" (see a- (3)) + horistos "limited, defined," verbal adjective from horizein "to limit, define," from horos "boundary, limit, border" (see horizon).

arose (v.)

past tense of arise (v.).

ate

past tense of eat (q.v.).

awake (v.)

a merger of two Middle English verbs: 1. awaken, from Old English awæcnan (earlier onwæcnan; strong, past tense awoc, past participle awacen) "to awake, arise, originate," from a "on" + wacan "to arise, become awake" (see wake (v.)); and 2. awakien, from Old English awacian (weak, past participle awacode) "to awaken, revive; arise; originate, spring from," from a "on" (see a (2)) + wacian "to be awake, remain awake, watch" (see watch (v.)).

Both originally were intransitive only; the transitive sense being expressed by Middle English awecchen (from Old English aweccan) until later Middle English. In Modern English, the tendency has been to restrict the strong past tense and past participle (awoke, awoken) to the original intransitive sense and the weak inflection (awakened) to the transitive, but this never has been complete (see wake (v.); also compare awaken).

awaken (v.)

Old English awæcnan (intransitive), "to spring into being, arise, originate," also, less often, "to wake up;" earlier onwæcnan, from a- (1) "on" + wæcnan (see waken). Transitive meaning "to rouse from sleep" is recorded from 1510s; figurative sense of "to stir up, rouse to activity" is from c. 1600.

Originally strong declension (past tense awoc, past participle awacen), already in Old English it was confused with awake (v.) and a weak past tense awæcnede (modern awakened) emerged and has since become the accepted form, with awoke and awoken transferred to awake. Subtle shades of distinction determine the use of awake or awaken in modern English. Related: Awakening.

awoke

past tense of awake (v.), from Old English awoc; also see awaken. The tendency has been to restrict the strong past tense (awoke) to the original intransitive sense of awake and the weak inflection (awakened) to the transitive, but this never has been complete.

bade

Old English bæd, past tense of bid (v.).

be (v.)

Old English beon, beom, bion "be, exist, come to be, become, happen," from Proto-Germanic *biju- "I am, I will be." This "b-root" is from PIE root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow, come into being," and in addition to the words in English it yielded German present first and second person singular (bin, bist, from Old High German bim "I am," bist "thou art"), Latin perfective tenses of esse (fui "I was," etc.), Old Church Slavonic byti "be," Greek phu- "become," Old Irish bi'u "I am," Lithuanian bu'ti "to be," Russian byt' "to be," etc. It also is behind Sanskrit bhavah "becoming," bhavati "becomes, happens," bhumih "earth, world."

The modern verb to be in its entirety represents the merger of two once-distinct verbs, the "b-root" represented by be and the am/was verb, which was itself a conglomerate. Roger Lass ("Old English") describes the verb as "a collection of semantically related paradigm fragments," while Weekley calls it "an accidental conglomeration from the different Old English dial[ect]s." It is the most irregular verb in Modern English and the most common. Collective in all Germanic languages, it has eight different forms in Modern English:

BE (infinitive, subjunctive, imperative)
AM (present 1st person singular)
ARE (present 2nd person singular and all plural)
IS (present 3rd person singular)
WAS (past 1st and 3rd persons singular)
WERE (past 2nd person singular, all plural; subjunctive)
BEING (progressive & present participle; gerund)
BEEN (perfect participle).

The paradigm in Old English was:

	SING.	PL.
1st pres.	ic eom ic beo	we sind(on) we beoð
2nd pres.	þu eart þu bist	ge sind(on) ge beoð
3rd pres.	he is he bið	hie sind(on) hie beoð
1st pret.	ic wæs	we wæron
2nd pret.	þu wære	ge waeron
3rd pret.	heo wæs	hie wæron
1st pret. subj.	ic wære	we wæren
2nd pret. subj.	þu wære	ge wæren
3rd pret. subj.	Egcferð wære	hie wæren

The "b-root" had no past tense in Old English, but often served as future tense of am/was. In 13c. it took the place of the infinitive, participle and imperative forms of am/was. Later its plural forms (we beth, ye ben, they be) became standard in Middle English and it made inroads into the singular (I be, thou beest, he beth), but forms of are claimed this turf in the 1500s and replaced be in the plural. For the origin and evolution of the am/was branches of this tangle, see am and was.

That but this blow Might be the be all, and the end all. ["Macbeth" I.vii.5]

bear (v.)

Old English beran "to bear, bring; bring forth, produce; to endure, sustain; to wear" (class IV strong verb; past tense bær, past participle boren), from Proto-Germanic *beran (cognates: Old Saxon beran, Old Frisian bera, Old High German beran, German gebären, Old Norse bera, Gothic bairan "to carry, bear, give birth to"), from PIE root *bher- (1) meaning both "give birth" (though only English and German strongly retain this sense, and Russian has beremennaya "pregnant") and "carry a burden, bring" (see infer).

Ball bearings "bear" the friction. Many senses are from notion of "move onward by pressure." Old English past tense bær became Middle English bare; alternative bore began to appear c. 1400, but bare remained the literary form till after 1600. Past participle distinction of borne for "carried" and born for "given birth" is from late 18c. To bear (something) in mind is from 1530s.

beat (v.)

Old English beatan "inflict blows on, thrash" (class VII strong verb; past tense beot, past participle beaten), from Proto-Germanic *bautan (cognates: Old Norse bauta, Old High German bozan "to beat"), from PIE root *bhau- "to strike" (see batter (v.)). Of the heart, c. 1200, from notion of it striking against the breast. Meaning "to overcome in a contest" is from 1610s (the source of the sense of "legally avoid, escape" in beat the charges, etc., attested from c. 1920 in underworld slang).

Past tense beat is from c. 1500, probably not from Old English but a shortening of Middle English beted. Dead-beat (originally "tired-out") preserves the old past participle. Meaning "strike cover to rouse or drive game" (c. 1400) is source of beat around the bush (1570s), the metaphoric sense of which has shifted from "make preliminary motions" to "avoid, evade." Command beat it "go away" first recorded 1906 (though "action of feet upon the ground" was a sense of Old English betan). To beat off "masturbate" is recorded by 1960s. For beat generation see beatnik.

beat (adj.)

"defeated, overcome by effort," c. 1400, from past tense of beat (v.). Meaning "tired, exhausted," is by 1905, American English.

became

past tense of become (q.v.).

began (v.)

past tense of begin.

begat (v.)

archaic past tense of beget.

beget (v.)

Old English begietan "to get by effort, find, acquire, attain, seize" (class V strong verb, past tense begeat, past participle begeaton), from be- + get (v.). Sense of "to procreate" is from c. 1200. Related to Old High German pigezzan, Gothic bigitan "to get, obtain." Related: Begot; begotten.

begin (v.)

Old English beginnan "to begin, attempt, undertake," a rare word beside the more usual form onginnan (class III strong verb; past tense ongann, past participle ongunnen); from bi- (see be-) + West Germanic *ginnan, of obscure meaning and found only in compounds, perhaps "to open, open up" (compare Old High German in-ginnan "to cut open, open up," also "begin, undertake"), with sense evolution from "open" to "begin." Cognates elsewhere in Germanic include Old Frisian biginna "to begin," Middle Dutch beghinnen, Old High German beginnan, German beginnen, Old Frisian bijenna "to begin," Gothic duginnan.

beheld (v.)

past tense and past participle of behold.

behoof (n.)

c. 1200, "use, benefit, advantage;" Old English had bihoflic "useful," implying *bihof "advantage, utility;" from Proto-Germanic *bi-hof "that which binds, requirement, obligation" (cognates: Old Frisian bihof "advantage," Dutch behoef, Middle High German bihuof "useful thing," German Behuf "benefit, use, advantage"). In the common Germanic compound, the first element, likely intensive, is cognate with be- and the second with Old English hof, past tense of hebban "to raise" (see heave (v.)). The original sense is perhaps, then, "taking up (for oneself)."

bereave (v.)

Old English bereafian "to deprive of, take away, seize, rob," from be + reafian "rob, plunder," from Proto-Germanic *raubojanan, from PIE *reup- "to snatch" (see rapid). A common Germanic formation (compare Old Frisian birava "despoil," Old Saxon biroban, Dutch berooven, Old High German biroubon, German berauben, Gothic biraubon). Since mid-17c., mostly in reference to life, hope, loved ones, and other immaterial possessions. Past tense forms bereaved and bereft have co-existed since 14c., now slightly differentiated in meaning, the former applied to loss of loved ones, the latter to circumstances.

beset (v.)

Old English besettan "to put, place; own, keep; occupy, settle; cover, surround with, besiege," from Proto-Germanic *bisatjan (cognates: Old Saxon bisettjan, Dutch bezetten, Old High German bisezzan, German besetzen, Gothic bisatjan); see be- + set (v.). The figurative sense also was in Old English. Related: Beset (past tense); besetting.

besought

Middle English besohte, past tense and past participle of beseech.