英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

aspic [aspic 词源字典]: aspic: [18] Aspic was borrowed from French, where, like the archaic English asp which reputedly bit Cleopatra, it also means ‘snake’ (ultimately from Greek aspís). This has led to speculation that aspic the jelly was named from aspic the snake on the basis that the colours and patterns in which moulds of aspic were made in the 18th and 19th centuries resembled a snake’s coloration.

There does not appear to be any watertight evidence for this rather far-fetched theory, and perhaps more plausible is some connection with French aspic ‘lavender, spikenard’, formerly used for flavouring aspic, or with Greek aspís ‘shield’ (source of aspidistra [19]), on the basis that the earliest aspic moulds were shield-shaped.
[aspic etymology, aspic origin, 英语词源]
kaleidoscope: kaleidoscope: [19] Greek kalós meant ‘beautiful’ (it was related to Sanskrit kalyāna ‘beautiful’). It has given English a number of compound words: calligraphy [17], for instance, etymologically ‘beautiful writing’, callipygian [18], ‘having beautiful buttocks’, and callisthenics [19], literally ‘beauty and strength’. The Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster used it, along with Greek eidos ‘shape’ and the element -scope denoting ‘observation instrument’, to name a device he invented in 1817 for looking at rotating patterns of coloured glass – a ‘beautiful-shape viewer’.
=> calligraphy, callisthenics
lair: lair: [OE] Etymologically a lair is a place where you ‘lie’ down. For it comes ultimately from the same Germanic base, *leg-, as produced English lie. In Old English it had a range of meanings, from ‘bed’ to ‘grave’, which are now defunct, and the modern sense ‘place where an animal lives’ did not emerge until the 15th century. Related Germanic forms show different patterns of semantic development: Dutch leger, for instance, means ‘bed’ and ‘camp’ (it has given English beleaguer [16] and, via Afrikaans, laager [19]) and German lager (source of English lager) means ‘bed’, ‘camp’, and ‘storeroom’. Layer in the sense ‘stratum’ [17] (which to begin with was a culinary term) may have originated as a variant of lair.
=> beleaguer, laager, lager, lay, layer, lie
mark: mark: English has two words mark, although they may be ultimately related. Mark ‘sign, trace’ [OE] goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *markō. This seems originally to have denoted ‘boundary’ (that is what Old English mearc meant, and related forms such as march ‘border’ and margin still bear witness to it), but the notion of a ‘sign denoting a boundary’ seems to have led early on to the development of the word’s main present-day sense. Remark is closely related, as are marquis and marchioness, and marquetry [16], borrowed from French marqueterie, a derivative of marque ‘mark’, denotes etymologically work that is ‘marked’ with patterns. Mark ‘coin’ [OE] comes from medieval Latin marcus or marca, which may well derive ultimately from the ancestor of mark ‘sign, trace’ (its etymological meaning being ‘mark on a piece of metal, constituting a coin’).
=> demarcation, march, margin, marquetry, marquis, remark
psephology: psephology: [20] The term psephology ‘study of voting patterns’ was coined in the early 1950s by R B McCallum from Greek pséphos ‘pebble’. Pebbles were used in ancient Greece for casting votes, and so pséphos came to mean metaphorically ‘vote’ – hence psephology.
berlin (n.): old type of four-wheeled covered carriage, 1690s, so called because it was introduced in Brandenburg, c. 1670; see Berlin. Hence berline (from the French form) "automobile with a glass partition behind the driver's seat." In reference to a type of wool and the popular patterns made for it, from 1841.
candy-striper (n.): young female volunteer nurse at a hospital, by 1962, so called from the pink-striped design of her uniform, similar to patterns on peppermint candy.
dieresis (n.): also diaeresis, 1610s, "sign marking the division of a diphthong into two simple sounds," from Late Latin diaeresis, from Greek diairesis "division," noun of action from diairein "to divide, separate," from dia- "apart" (see dia-) + hairein "to take" (see heresy). In classical prosody, "the slight break in the forward motion of a line that is felt when the end of a foot coincides with the end of a word" [Miller Williams, "Patterns of Poetry"].
doggerel: late 14c. (adj.); 1630s (n.), "Any rhyming verse in which the meter is forced into metronomic regularity by the stressing of normally unstressed syllables and in which rhyme is forced or banal" [Miller Williams, "Patterns of Poetry"]. probably from dog (n.) + pejorative suffix -rel and applied to bad poetry perhaps with a suggestion of puppyish clumsiness, or being fit only for dogs. Attested as a surname from mid-13c., but the sense is not evident.
epic (adj.): 1580s, "pertaining to or constituting a lengthy heroic poem," via Middle French épique or directly from Latin epicus, from Greek epikos, from epos "a word; a tale, story; promise, prophecy, proverb; poetry in heroic verse," from PIE *wekw- "to speak" (see voice (n.)). Extended sense of "grand, heroic" first recorded in English 1731. From 1706 as a noun in reference to an epic poem, "A long narrative told on a grand scale of time and place, featuring a larger-than-life protagonist and heroic actions" [Miller Williams, "Patterns of Poetry"]. Earlier as "an epic poet" (1630s).
fractal (n.): "never-ending pattern," 1975, from French fractal, from Latin fractus "interrupted, irregular," literally "broken," past participle of frangere "to break" (see fraction). Coined by French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010) in "Les Objets Fractals."
Many important spatial patterns of Nature are either irregular or fragmented to such an extreme degree that ... classical geometry ... is hardly of any help in describing their form. ... I hope to show that it is possible in many cases to remedy this absence of geometric representation by using a family of shapes I propose to call fractals -- or fractal sets. [Mandelbrot, "Fractals," 1977]
haiku (n.): 1900, from Japanese haiku, telescoped (supposedly in the late nineteenth century, by the poet Shiki) from haikai no ku "jocosity of verse," originally the name of the opening lines of a type of improvised, witty linked verse. The form developed mid-16c. "Traditionally, there is mention of a season of the year somewhere in a haiku, as a means of establishing the poem's tone, though this may be only the slightest suggestion." [Miller Williams, "Patterns of Poetry," Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1986].
hymnal (n.): c. 1500, imnale, himnale, from Medieval Latin hymnale, from ymnus, from Latin hymnus (see hymn). As an adjective, attested from 1640s. Hymnal measure, a quatrain, usually iambic, alternately rhymed, is so called for being the preferred verse form for English hymns (such as "Amazing Grace"), but it has been popular in English secular poetry as well, "though it almost always suggests the hymn, directly or ironically" [Miller Williams, "Patterns of Poetry," Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1986].
limerick (n.): nonsense verse of five lines, 1896, perhaps from the county and city in Ireland, but if so the connection is obscure. Often (after OED's Murray) attributed to a party game in which each guest in turn made up a nonsense verse and all sang a refrain with the line "Will you come up to Limerick?" but he reported this in 1898 and earlier evidence is wanting. Or perhaps from Learic, from Edward Lear (1812-1888) English humorist who popularized the form. Earliest examples are in French, which further complicates the quest for the origin. OED's first record of the word is in a letter of Aubrey Beardsley. The place name is literally "bare ground," from Irish Liumneach, from lom "bare, thin." It was famous for hooks.
The limerick may be the only traditional form in English not borrowed from the poetry of another language. Although the oldest known examples are in French, the name is from Limerick, Ireland. John Ciardi suggests that the Irish Brigade, which served in France for most of the eighteenth century, might have taken the form to France or developed an English version of a French form. ... The contemporary limerick usually depends on a pun or some other turn of wit. It is also likely to be somewhat suggestive or downright dirty." [Miller Williams, "Patterns of Poetry," Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1986]
meander (n.): 1570s, "confusion, intricacies," from Latin meander "a winding course," from Greek Maiandros, name of a river in Caria noted for its winding course (the Greeks used the name figuratively for winding patterns). In reference to river courses, in English, from 1590s. Adjectival forms are meandrine (1846); meandrous (1650s).
neo-classical: also neoclassical, style of art, architecture, etc., influenced by classical patterns, 1859, especially in reference to 18th century English literature; from neo- + classical. Related: Neo-classicism/neoclassicism.
poulterer (n.): "dealer in poultry," 1630s, a redundancy, but it has largely ousted original poulter (mid-13c., pulter), from Anglo-French poleter, pulleter, Old French pouletier "poulterer," from pouletrie (see poultry). With agent suffix -er (1). Poetic poulter's measure (1570s), according to Miller Williams, is "So called because with its thirteen feet it suggests the poulter's old practice of giving an extra egg with the second dozen." ["Patterns of Poetry," Louisiana State University, 1986].
regular (adj.): late 14c., from Old French reguler "ecclesiastical" (Modern French régulier), from Late Latin regularis "containing rules for guidance," from Latin regula "rule," from PIE *reg- "move in a straight line" (see regal).

Earliest sense was of religious orders (the opposite of secular). Extended from late 16c. to shapes, etc., that followed predictable or uniform patterns; sense of "normal" is from 1630s; meaning "real, genuine" is from 1821. Old English borrowed Latin regula and nativized it as regol "rule, regulation, canon, law, standard, pattern;" hence regolsticca "ruler" (instrument); regollic (adj.) "canonical, regular."
-s (1): suffix forming almost all Modern English plural nouns, gradually extended in Middle English from Old English -as, the nominative plural and accusative plural ending of certain "strong" masculine nouns (such as dæg "day," nominative/accusative plural dagas "days"). The commonest Germanic declension, traceable back to the original PIE inflection system, it is also the source of the Dutch -s plurals and (by rhotacism) Scandinavian -r plurals (such as Swedish dagar).

Much more uniform today than originally; Old English also had a numerous category of "weak" nouns that formed their plurals in -an, and other strong nouns that formed plurals with -u. Quirk and Wrenn, in their Old English grammar, estimate that 45 percent of the nouns a student will encounter will be masculine, nearly four-fifths of them with genitive singular -es and nominative/accusative plural in -as. Less than half, but still the largest chunk.

The triumphs of -'s possessives and -s plurals represent common patterns in language: using only a handful of suffixes to do many jobs (such as -ing), and the most common variant squeezing out the competition. To further muddy the waters, it's been extended in slang since 1936 to singulars (such as ducks, sweets, babes) as an affectionate or diminutive suffix.

Old English single-syllable collectives (sheep, folk) as well as weights, measures, and units of time did not use -s. The use of it in these cases began in Middle English, but the older custom is preserved in many traditional dialects (ten pound of butter; more than seven year ago; etc.).
sheldrake (n.): early 14c., from sheld- "variegated" + drake "male duck." First element cognate with Middle Dutch schillede "separated, variegated," West Flemish schilde, from schillen (Dutch verschillen "to make different"), from Proto-Germanic *skeli-, from PIE root *(s)kel- (1) "to cut" (see scale (n.1)). This is the origin considered most likely, though English sheld by itself is a dialect word attested only from c. 1500. OED finds derivation from shield (n.), on resemblance to the patterns on shields, "improbable."
teal (n.): "small freshwater duck," early 14c., of uncertain origin, probably from an unrecorded Old English word cognate with Middle Dutch teling "teal," Middle Low German telink, from West Germanic *taili. As the name of a shade of dark greenish-blue resembling the color patterns on the fowl's head and wings, it is attested from 1923 in clothing advertisements.
broderie anglaise: "Open embroidery, typically in floral patterns, on fine white cotton or linen", Mid 19th century: French, literally 'English embroidery'.
Aran: "Denoting a type of knitwear or garment with traditional patterns, typically involving raised cable stitch and large diamond designs", 1960s: from the Aran Islands.
millefiori: "A kind of ornamental glass in which a number of glass rods of different sizes and colours are fused together and cut into sections which form various patterns, typically embedded in colourless transparent glass to make items such as paperweights", Mid 19th century: from Italian millefiore, literally 'a thousand flowers'.
op art: "A form of abstract art that gives the illusion of movement by the precise use of pattern and colour, or in which conflicting patterns emerge and overlap. Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely are its most famous exponents", 1960s: shortened from optical art, on the pattern of pop art.
La Niña: "A cooling of the water in the equatorial Pacific, which occurs at irregular intervals, and is associated with widespread changes in weather patterns complementary to those of El Niño, but less extensive and damaging in their effects", Spanish, literally 'the girl child', after El Niño.
El Niño: "An irregularly occurring and complex series of climatic changes affecting the equatorial Pacific region and beyond every few years, characterized by the appearance of unusually warm, nutrient-poor water off northern Peru and Ecuador, typically in late December. The effects of El Niño include reversal of wind patterns across the Pacific, drought in Australasia, and unseasonal heavy rain in South America", Spanish, literally 'the (Christ) child', because of the occurrence near Christmas.