英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

film [film 词源字典]: film: [OE] The notion underlying film is of a thin ‘skin’. The word comes ultimately from a prehistoric Germanic *fellam, which was related to Latin pellis ‘skin’ (source of English pelt ‘skin’). From this was derived *filminjam, which produced Old English filmen, a word used for various sorts of anatomical membrane or thin skin, including the peritoneum and the foreskin of the penis.

It was generalized from the late 16th century to any thin membrane, and was applied by early 19th-century photographers to a thin layer of gel spread on photographic plates (‘The film of isinglass … peels off and will be found to bear a minute copy of the original’, William Thornthwaite, Guide to Photography 1845). As photographic technique moved on to cellulose coated with photosensitive emulsion, it took the term film with it.
=> pelt[film etymology, film origin, 英语词源]
mica: mica: [18] Latin mīca meant ‘grain’, and its original use in English (perhaps influenced by the similar but unrelated Latin verb micāre ‘shine’) was to ‘small shiny particles or platelets’ in certain sorts of rock. The modern application to a group of related silicates, which contain such shiny plates, dates from the 1790s.
plaice: plaice: [13] The plaice is etymologically the ‘broad’ fish. Its name goes back ultimately to Greek platūs ‘broad’ (which makes it distantly related to place). From this was descended, via some missing links, late Latin platessa ‘flatfish’, which became Old French plaïs – whence English plaice.
=> place, plate, platypus
scullery: scullery: [15] A scullery is etymologically a place where ‘dishes’ are handled. For it goes back ultimately to Latin scutra ‘wooden dish’. Its diminutive form scutella was used for a sort of square tray or stand for plates, glasses, vases, etc. Association with scūtum ‘shield’ led to this being changed in Vulgar Latin to *scūtella, which passed into Old French as escuele ‘dish’. Its derivative escuelerie ‘place where dishes, plates, and other kitchen utensils are kept, cleaned, etc’ passed into English via Anglo- Norman squillerie as scullery. Also descended from scutella are English scuttle and skillet.
shell: shell: [OE] Shell goes back ultimately to the Germanic base *skal- ‘divide, separate’, which also produced English scale, scalp, school (of fish), shale, shelter, shield, shoal (of fish), skill, and skol. Its underlying meaning is hence a ‘covering that splits off or is peeled off’. Its immediate Germanic ancestor was *skaljō, which also produced Dutch schel and Norwegian skjæl. Shellac [18] is a compound of shell and lac ‘lacquer, varnish’ (a word of Sanskrit origin, of which lacquer is a derivative), and is a direct translation of French laque en écailles ‘lac (melted) in thin plates’.
=> scale, scalp, school, shale, shelter, shield, shoal, skill, skol
tyre: tyre: [15] The word tyre was originally used for a protective covering of metal plates put round the rim of a wooden wheel. It is thought that it was short for attire [13] (a borrowing from Old French, but ultimately of unknown origin), the notion being of ‘attiring’ the wheels in their covering. At first the word was spelled tire or tyre indiscriminately. By the 18th century tire had become the standard form, and it remains so in American English, but when rubber wheel cushions were introduced in the 19th century, British English took to spelling them tyre.
=> attire
boilerplate (n.): newspaper (and now information technology) slang for "unit of writing that can be used over and over without change," 1893, from a literal meaning (1840) "metal rolled in large, flat plates for use in making steam boilers." The connecting notion is probably of sturdiness or reusability. From 1890s to 1950s, publicity items were cast or stamped in metal ready for the printing press and distributed to newspapers as filler. The largest supplier was Western Newspaper Union.
corsage (n.): late 15c., "size of the body," from Old French cors "body" (see corpse); the meaning "body of a woman's dress, bodice" is from 1818 in fashion plates translated from French; 1843 in a clearly English context. Sense of "a bouquet worn on the bodice" is 1911, American English, apparently from French bouquet de corsage "bouquet of the bodice."
cottage (n.): late 13c., from Old French cote "hut, cottage" + Anglo-French suffix -age (probably denoting "the entire property attached to a cote"). Old French cot is probably from Old Norse kot "hut," cognate of Old English cot, cote "cottage, hut," from Proto-Germanic *kutan (cognates: Middle Dutch cot, Dutch kot).

Meaning "small country residence" (without suggestion of poverty or tenancy) is from 1765. Modern French cottage is a 19c. reborrowing from English. Cottage industry is attested from 1921. Cottage cheese is attested from 1831, American English, earliest in reference to Philadelphia:
There was a plate of rye-bread, and a plate of wheat, and a basket of crackers; another plate with half a dozen paltry cakes that looked as if they had been bought under the old Court House; some morsels of dried beef on two little tea-cup plates: and a small glass dish of that preparation of curds, which in vulgar language is called smear-case, but whose nom de guerre is cottage-cheese, at least that was the appellation given it by our hostess. ["Miss Leslie," "Country Lodgings," Godey's "Lady's Book," July 1831]
film (n.): Old English filmen "membrane, thin skin, foreskin," from West Germanic *filminjan (cognates: Old Frisian filmene "skin," Old English fell "hide"), extended from Proto-Germanic *fello(m) "animal hide," from PIE *pel- (4) "skin, hide" (cognates: Greek pella, Latin pellis "skin").

Sense of "a thin coat of something" is 1570s, extended by 1845 to the coating of chemical gel on photographic plates. By 1895 this also meant the coating plus the paper or celluloid. Hence "a motion picture" (1905); sense of "film-making as a craft or art" is from 1920.
flatware (n.): 1851, from flat (adj.), which was used from late 14c. of plates, dishes, saucers in a sense "shallow; smooth-surfaced" + ware (n.). Originally as distinguished from hollow ware; U.S. sense of "domestic cutlery" recorded by 1895.
Gibson girl (n.): "woman considered stylish at the turn of the 20th century," 1894, named for U.S. artist and illustrator Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944), whose main model was his wife, Irene Langhorne (1873-1956). The Gibson cocktail (gin, vermouth, and a pearl onion) is attested by 1914, in some stories ascribed to him but the origin of the term is unknown.
"She looks like a Gibson girl" is not an uncommon saying; and to look like a Gibson girl, is not without its merits. Although our artist has expressed in his drawings disapproval of women usurping the spheres of men, his girls suggest intellectuality. He has none of the doll-like inanely pretty faces which artists used to give women in olden days. His girls look as if they would have opinions of their own and would act with discrimination in the affairs of life. They are tall and graceful and although not in the least like fashion plates, their clothes are becoming and fit perfectly. [National Magazine, May 1898]
laminate (v.): 1660s, "to beat or roll into thin plates," from Latin lamina "thin piece of metal or wood, thin slice, plate, leaf, layer," of unknown origin. Many modern senses are from the noun meaning "an artificial thin layer" (1939), especially a type of plastic adhesive. Related: Laminated; laminating.
plaice (n.): type of European edible flatfish, late 13c., from Old French plaise (12c., Modern French plie), from Late Latin platessa "plaice, flatfish," perhaps related to or from Greek platys "broad, flat," from PIE *plat- "to spread" (cognates: Sanskrit prathati "spreads out;" Hittite palhi "broad;" Lithuanian platus "broad;" German Fladen "flat cake;" Old Norse flatr "flat;" Old English flet "floor, dwelling;" Old Irish lethan "broad"); extended variant form of root *pele- (2) "flat; to spread" (see plane (n.1)).
scale (n.1): "skin plates on fish or snakes," c. 1300, from Old French escale "cup, scale, shell pod, husk" (12c., Modern French écale) "scale, husk," from Frankish *skala or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *skælo "split, divide" (cognates: Dutch schaal "a scale, husk," Old High German scala "shell," Gothic skalja "tile," Old English scealu "shell, husk"), from PIE root *(s)kel- (1) "to cut, cleave, split" (cognates: Latin culter "knife," scalpere "to cut, scrape;" Old Church Slavonic skolika "mussel, shell," Russian skala "rind, bark," Lithuanian skelti "split," Old English scell "shell," scalu "drinking cup, bowl, scale of a balance").

In reference to humans, as a condition of certain skin diseases, it is attested from c. 1400. As what falls from one's eye when blindness ends (usually figurative), it echoes Acts ix:18 (Latin tanquam squamæ, Greek hosei lepides).
scullery (n.): mid-15c. (early 14c. as a surname), "household department concerned with the care of kitchen utensils," from Old French escuelerie "office of the servant in charge of plates, etc.," from escuelier "keeper of the dishes," from escuele "dish" (12c., Modern French écuelle), from Latin scutella "serving platter, silver" (see scuttle (n.)).
shellac (n.): 1713, from shell (n.) + lac (see lacquer). Translates French laque en écailles "lac in thin plates."
slate (n.): mid-14c., from Old French esclate, fem. of esclat "split piece, splinter" (Modern French éclat; see slat), so called because the rock splits easily into thin plates. As an adjective, 1510s. As a color, first recorded 1813. Sense of "a writing tablet" (made of slate), first recorded late 14c., led to that of "list of preliminary candidates prepared by party managers," first recorded 1842, from notion of being easily altered or erased. Clean slate (1856) is an image from customer accounts chalked up in a tavern.
slit (v.): c. 1200, from or related to Old English slitan "to slit, tear, split, rend to pieces; bite, sting; back-bite," from Proto-Germanic *slitan (cognates: Old Saxon slitan, Old Frisian slita, Old Norse slita, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch sliten, Dutch slijten, Old High German slizan, German schleißen "to slit"). A more violent verb in Old English than after, as in slitcwealm "death by rending." Slit skirt is attested from 1913.A slitting-mill (1660s) cut iron plates into thin rods for making nails, etc.
stegosaurus (n.): type of plant-eating dinosaur, 1892, from Modern Latin order name Stegosauria (O.C. Marsh, 1877), from comb. form of Greek stegos "a roof" (related to stege "covering," stegein "to cover," from PIE root *(s)teg- (2) "to cover," especially "cover with a roof" (cognates: Sanskrit sthag- "cover, conceal, hide;" Latin tegere "to cover;" Lithuanian stegti "roof;" Old Norse þekja, Old English þeccan "thatch;" Dutch dekken, German decken "to cover, put under roof;" Irish tuigiur "cover," tech "house;" Welsh toi "thatch, roof," ty "house") + -saurus. The back-armor plates in the fossilized remains look like roof tiles.
tire (n.): late 15c., "iron plates forming a rim of a carriage wheel," probably from tire "equipment, dress, covering" (c. 1300), a shortened form of attire (n.). The notion is of the tire as the dressing of the wheel. The original spelling was tyre, which had shifted to tire in 17c.-18c., but since early 19c. tyre has been revived in Great Britain and become standard there. Rubber ones, for bicycles (later automobiles) are from 1877. A tire-iron originally was one of the iron plates; as a device for separating a tire from a wheel, by 1909.
celesta: "A small keyboard instrument in which felted hammers strike a row of steel plates suspended over wooden resonators, giving an ethereal bell-like sound", Late 19th century: pseudo-Latin, based on French céleste ‘heavenly’.
selenite: "A form of gypsum occurring as transparent crystals or thin plates", Mid 17th century: via Latin from Greek selēnitēs lithos 'moonstone', from selēnē 'moon' + lithos 'stone'.
ankylosaur: "A heavily built quadrupedal herbivorous dinosaur of the Cretaceous period, armoured with bony plates", Early 20th century: from modern Latin Ankylosaurus, from Greek ankulos (see ankylosis) + sauros 'lizard'.
crinet: "A set of segmented metal plates which cover the top and sides of a horse's neck as part of its protective armour. Compare crinière; cranet. Now historical", Late 15th cent.; earliest use found in The Book of St. Albans. Apparently from Middle French crin hair + -et; compare Old French crignete hair, mane.
Testudines: "An order of reptiles which comprises the turtles, terrapins, and tortoises. They are distinguished by having a shell of bony plates covered with horny scales, and many kinds are aquatic", Modern Latin (plural), based on Latin testa 'shell'.