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appropriate [appropriate 词源字典]: appropriate: see proper
[appropriate etymology, appropriate origin, 英语词源]
apricot: apricot: [16] The word apricot reached English by a peculiarly circuitous route from Latin. The original term used by the Romans for the apricot, a fruit which came ultimately from China, was prūnum Arminiacum or mālum Arminiacum ‘Armenian plum or apple’ (Armenia was an early source of choice apricots). But a new term gradually replaced these: mālum praecocum ‘early-ripening apple’ (praecocus was a variant of praecox, from which English gets precocious). Praecocum was borrowed by a succession of languages, making its way via Byzantine Greek beríkokkon and Arabic al birqūq ‘the apricot’ to Spanish albaricoque and Portuguese albricoque.

This was the source of the English word, but its earliest form, abrecock, shows that it had already acquired the initial abrof French abricot, and the final -t followed almost immediately. Spellings with p instead of b are also found in the 16th century.
=> precocious
April: April: [14] Aprīlis was the name given by the Romans to the fourth month of the year. It is thought that the word may be based on Apru, an Etruscan borrowing of Greek Aphrō, a shortened version of Aphroditē, the name of the Greek goddess of love. In that case Aprīlis would have signified for the Romans ‘the month of Venus’. English acquired the word direct from Latin, but earlier, in the 13th century, it had borrowed the French version, avril; this survived, as averil, until the 15th century in England, and for longer in Scotland. The term April fool goes back at least to the late 17th century.
=> aphrodite
caprice: caprice: [17] Etymologically, caprice means ‘hedgehog-head’. It comes, via French caprice, from an Italian noun capriccio, formed from capo ‘head’ (from Latin caput) and riccio ‘hedgehog’ (from Latin ericeus, source of English urchin). Originally this meant ‘horror, shuddering’, the reference being to the hair of a terror-stricken person standing on end. The word’s present-day meaning ‘whim, fickleness’ seems to be partly due to association with Italian capra ‘goat’, from the animal’s frisky behaviour.
=> urchin
comprise: comprise: see prey
culprit: culprit: [17] Culprit appears to be a fossilized survival of the mixture of English and French once used in English courts. The usually accepted account of its origin is that it is a lexicalization of an exchange in court between the accused and the prosecutor. If the prisoner pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charge read out against him, the prosecutor would have countered, in Law French, with ‘Culpable: prit d’averrer …’, literally ‘Guilty: ready to prove’. (English culpable [14] comes ultimately from Latin culpa ‘guilt’, and prit is the Anglo- Norman form of what in modern French has become prêt ‘ready’, from Latin praestus – source of English presto).

The theory is that this would have been noted down by those recording the proceedings in abbreviated form as cul. prit, which eventually came to be apprehended as a term used for addressing the accused.
=> culpable, presto
deprive: deprive: see private
enterprise: enterprise: [15] Enterprise is the Romancelanguage equivalent of the native English formation undertaking. It comes from the past participle of Old French entreprendre, a compound verb formed from entre ‘between’ and prendre ‘take’ (a word with many relatives in English, from comprehend to surprise). The original Old French version of the word was emprise (from Vulgar Latin *imprendere ‘undertake’, in which the prefix was in- rather than inter-), and English actually borrowed this in the 13th century; it survived as an archaism into the 19th century.

The underlying meaning of both versions is probably ‘taking something in or between one’s hands’ so as to do something about it.
=> apprehend, comprehend, comprise, surprise
grand prix: grand prix: see prize
price: price: [13] The Latin word for ‘price’ was pretium (it was probably derived ultimately from the Indo-European preposition *preti ‘back’, and so etymologically denoted ‘recompense’). Its descendants have spread through most modern western European languages, including French prix, Italian prezzo, Spanish precio, German preis, and Dutch prijs.

The last two were borrowed from Old French pris, the ancestor of modern prix, as was English price. The word differentiated in the 16th century into price and prize; and derivatives of the Latin original have given English appreciate, depreciate [15], praise, and precious.
=> appraise, appreciate, depreciate, grand prix, praise, precious
prick: prick: [OE] Prick is a word of the Low German area, which English shares with Dutch (prik). Its ultimate origins, though, are not known. The earliest record of its use for ‘penis’ is from the late 16th century, and in the 16th and 17th centuries women employed it as a term of endearment – a usage which did not go down well in all quarters: ‘One word alone hath troubled some, because the immodest maid soothing the young man, calls him her Prick. He who cannot away with this, instead of “my Prick”, let him write “my Sweetheart”,’ H M, Colloquies of Erasmus 1671. Prickle [OE] is a diminutive derivative.
=> prickle
pride: pride: [OE] The original Old English noun for ‘pride’ was pryte, a derivative of the adjective prūd ‘proud’ (ancestor of modern English proud). This changed in the 11th century to pryde, probably under the influence of the adjective, and subsequently developed to pride. There is an isolated example of the use of the word for a ‘group of lions’ from the late 15th century, but the modern usage seems to be a 20th-century revival.
=> proud
priest: priest: [OE] Priest goes back ultimately to the Greek noun presbúteros, which meant literally ‘elder’ (it was formed from the comparative of the adjective présbus ‘old’). It was used in the Greek translation of the New Testament for ‘elder of the church, priest’. It was borrowed into Latin as presbyter (source of English presbyterian [17]). This subsequently became reduced to *prēster (as in Prester John), which was taken over by Old English as prēost, ancestor of modern English priest.
=> presbyterian
prim: prim: [18] Prim etymologically means ‘first’. It comes from Old French prime, the feminine form of prin ‘fine, excellent’, which went back to Latin prīmus ‘first’ (source of English prime). The English meaning developed through a derogatory ‘overrefined’.
=> first, prime
prima donna: prima donna: see dame
prime: prime: [OE] Latin prīmus ‘first’ came from an earlier *prīsmo-, which went back ultimately to Indo-European *pro ‘before, in front’ (ancestor also of English first). English first acquired it direct from Latin in the Anglo-Saxon period as an ecclesiastical term for the earliest of the canonical hours, and this is the source of the modern English noun uses of the word (as in ‘in one’s prime’).

The adjective prime was borrowed in the 14th century from Old French prime. English has a wide range of words that go back to derivatives of Latin prīmus, including premier [15], prim, primal [17], primary [15], primate [13], primitive [14], prince, principal, and principle. The trade-name Primus was first used for a sort of paraffin lamp in the early years of the 20th century.
=> first, premier, prim, primitive, prince, principle
prince: prince: [13] A prince is etymologically someone who ‘takes first place’, hence a ‘leader’. The word comes via Old French prince from Latin princeps, a compound formed from prīmus ‘first’ (source of English prime) and capere ‘take’ (source of English captive, capture, etc). (German fürst ‘prince’ was derived from Old High German furist ‘first’, apparently in imitation of the Latin word.) The derivative princess [14] was also acquired from Old French.
=> first, prime
principle: principle: [14] Frequently confused, principal [13] and principle come from distinct sources – but both sources were derived ultimately from Latin princeps ‘chief’ (from which English gets prince). Principal goes back via Old French principal to Latin principālis ‘first, original’, while principle comes from *principle, an assumed Anglo-Norman variant of Old French principle, which went back to Latin principium ‘beginning, foundation’.
=> first, prime, prince
print: print: [13] Latin premere meant ‘press’ (its past participial stem press- underlies English press). It passed into Old French as preindre, whose past participle formed the basis of a noun preinte ‘impression, impressed mark’ – source of English print. The verb first used for the activity of ‘printing books’ was the derived imprint [14] (‘Because this said book is full of wholesome wisdom … I have purposed to imprint it’, William Caxton, Game and Play of the Chess 1474), but print soon followed at the beginning of the 16th century.
=> press
prior: prior: Prior the ecclesiastical rank [11] and prior ‘previous’ [18] are ultimately the same word. Both go back to Latin prior ‘former, superior’, a comparative formation based on the Old Latin preposition pri ‘before’. This came in postclassical times to be used as a noun meaning ‘superior officer, administrator’, and it was taken over as such into the terminology of the monastic foundations.
prism: prism: [16] The etymological idea underlying the word prism is of its shape, that of a ‘sawn-off’ piece. It comes via medieval Latin prisma from Greek prísma, a derivative of the verb prízein ‘saw’. Its optical application emerged in English at the beginning of the 17th century.
prison: prison: [12] Like comprehend, prehensile, etc, prison goes back ultimately to Latin praehendere ‘seize’. From this was derived the noun praehensiō ‘seizure’, later contracted to prēnsiō, which passed into Old French as prisun. By now it had come to be used specifically for ‘imprisonment’, and from this it moved on in due course to the concrete ‘place of imprisonment’ – both senses which entered English from Old French in the 12th century.
=> apprehend, comprehensive, prehensile, prize, reprehensible
private: private: [14] Latin prīvus meant ‘single, individual’. From it was derived the verb prīvāre, source of English deprive [14] and privation [14]. This originally meant ‘make solitary, isolate’, and although it later moved on metaphorically to ‘bereave, deprive’, its earliest sense was preserved in the adjective formed from its past participle prīvātus.

This denoted ‘belonging to the individual alone’, hence ‘not belonging or related to the state’. English has acquired the word twice: first, via Old French, as the now almost archaic privy [13], and later, directly from Latin, as private. Privilege [12] comes via Old French privilege from Latin prīvilēgium, a compound formed from prīvus and lēx ‘law’ (source of English legal) which etymologically meant ‘law affecting an individual’.
=> deprive, privilege, privy
prize: prize: English has four words prize. The one meaning ‘reward’ [16] is essentially the same word as price. This was originally pris, mirroring its immediate Old French ancestor pris. It became prise, to indicate the length of its vowel i, and in the 16th century this differentiated into price for ‘amount to pay’ and prize for ‘reward’. (Modern French prix has given English grand prix [19], literally ‘great prize’, first used for a ‘car race’ in 1908.) Prize ‘esteem’ [14] was based on pris-, the stem of Old French preisier ‘praise’ (source of English praise). Prize ‘something captured in war’ [14] comes via Old French prise ‘capture, seizure, booty’ from Vulgar Latin *prēsa or *prēnsa ‘something seized’.

This was a noun use of the past participle of *prēndere ‘seize’, a contraction of classical Latin praehendere (from which English gets prehensile, prison, etc). Another sense of Old French prise was ‘grasp’. English borrowed this in the 14th century as prize ‘lever’, which in due course was turned into modern English’s fourth prize, the verb prize, or prise, ‘lever’ [17]. Pry ‘lever’ [19] is an alteration of prize, based on the misapprehension that it is a third-person singular present form (*pries).
=> grand prix, price; praise; comprehensive, prison, reprehensible; pry
propriety: propriety: see proper
reprieve: reprieve: [16] Reprieve originally meant ‘send back to prison’ (‘Of this treason he was found guilty, and reprieved in the Tower a long time’, Edmund Campion, History of Ireland 1571), but since this was often the alternative to execution, the word soon came to mean ‘suspend a death sentence’. The form in which it originally occurs, at the end of the 15th century, is repry, and it is not clear where the v came from. Repry was borrowed from repris, the past participle of Old French reprendre ‘take back’.

This in turn went back to Latin reprehendere (source of English reprehensible [14]), a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘back, again’ and prehendere ‘seize, take’ (source of English prison, prize, surprise, etc). The medieval Latin derivative reprehensālia produced English reprisal [15], and the feminine past participle of Old French reprendre was the source of English reprise [14].
=> apprehend, prison, prize, reprisal, reprise, surprise
spring: spring: [OE] The noun spring and the verb spring come from the same source: the Indo-European base *sprengh-, which denoted ‘rapid movement’. Of its Germanic verbal descendants, German and Dutch springen, like English spring, have moved on semantically to ‘jump’, but Swedish springa ‘run’ has stayed closer to its roots. The noun spring in Old English times denoted the place where a stream ‘rises’ from the ground, which soon evolved metaphorically into ‘source, origin’ in general.

The notion of ‘rising’ was also applied figuratively to the ‘beginning of the day’ and to the ‘emergence of new growth’, and the latter led in the 16th century, via the expression spring of the year, to the use of spring for the ‘season following winter’ (replacing the previous term Lent).
surprise: surprise: [15] To surprise someone is etymologically to ‘overtake’ them. The word comes from the past participle of Old French surprendre ‘overtake’, a compound verb formed from the prefix sur- ‘over’ and prendre ‘take’. By the time it reached English it was being used for ‘affect suddenly, as with a particular emotion’ (‘He shall be so surprised with anger and furious woodness [madness]’, William Caxton, Eneydos 1490), and this gradually evolved via ‘take unawares’ to, in the mid 17th century, ‘astonish’.
=> apprehend, comprehend, prison, reprehensible
a priori: 1710, "from cause to effect" (a logical term, in reference to reasoning), Latin, literally "from what comes first," from priori, ablative of prior "first" (see prior (adj.)). Used loosely for "in accordance with previous knowledge" (1834).
apprise (v.): "to notify," 1690s, from French appris, past participle of apprendre "to inform, teach," literally "to lay hold of (in the mind)," another metaphoric meaning of Latin apprehendere (see apprehend). Related: Apprised; apprising.
apprize (v.): occasional legalese form of appraise, c. 1400. Related: Apprized; apprizing.
appropriate (v.): early 15c., "take possession of," from Late Latin appropriatus, past participle of appropriare, adpropriare (c.450) "to make one's own," from Latin ad- "to" (see ad-) + propriare "take as one's own," from proprius "one's own" (see proper). Related: Appropriated; appropriating.
appropriate (adj.): "specially suitable, proper," early 15c., from Latin appropriatus, past participle of appropriare (see appropriate (v.)). Related: Appropriately; appropriateness.
appropriation (n.): late 14c., "taking (something) as private property," from Late Latin appropriationem (nominative appropriatio) "a making one's own," noun of action from past participle stem of appropriare (see appropriate). Meaning "setting aside for some purpose" (especially of money) first attested 1789 in U.S. Constitution.
apricate (v.): 1690s, "to bask in the sun," from Latin apricatus, past participle of apricari "to bask in the sun," from apricus "exposed" (to the sun); perhaps contracted from *apericus, from aperire "to open" (see overt). Transitive sense is recorded from 1851.
apricot (n.): 1550s, abrecock, from Catalan abercoc, related to Portuguese albricoque, from Arabic al-birquq, through Byzantine Greek berikokkia from Latin (malum) praecoquum "early-ripening (fruit)" (see precocious). Form assimilated to French abricot.
Latin praecoquis early-ripe, can probably be attributed to the fact that the fruit was considered a variety of peach that ripened sooner than other peaches .... [Barnhart]
The older Latin name for it was prunum Armeniacum or malum Armeniacum, in reference to supposed origin in Armenia. As a color name, first attested 1906.
April: fourth month, c. 1300, aueril, from Old French avril (11c.), from Latin (mensis) Aprilis, second month of the ancient Roman calendar, of uncertain origin, perhaps based on Apru, an Etruscan borrowing of Greek Aphrodite. Or perhaps *ap(e)rilis "the following, the next," from its place as the second month of the old Roman calendar, from Proto-Italic *ap(e)ro-, from PIE *apo- "away, off" (see apo-; compare Sanskrit aparah "second," Gothic afar "after"). With month-name suffix -ilis as in Quintilis, Sextilis (the old names of July and August). In English in Latin form from mid-12c. Replaced Old English Eastermonað, which was named for a fertility goddess (see Easter). Re-spelled in Middle English on Latin model (apprile first attested late 14c.).
April fool (n.): 1680s; April-gowk (from Old Norse gaukr "a cuckoo") is a northern variant. April Fool's Day customs of sending people on false errands seem to have come to England from France late 17c.; originally All Fool's Day (1712). In Cumberland, Westmorland and northern parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, however, May 1 was the day for hoaxing, and the fool was a May gosling. That custom was first attested 1791.
archbishopric (n.): Old English arcebiscoprice, from archbishop + rice "realm, dominion, province" (see regal).
Bernoulli's principle: named for Dutch mathematician Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), who published it in 1738.
besprinkle (v.): mid-15c., from be- + sprinkle (v.). Related: Besprinkled; besprinkling.
bishopric (n.): Old English bisceoprice "diocese, province of a bishop," from bishop + rice "realm, dominion, province" (see regal).
blueprint (n.): also blue-print, 1882, from blue (1) + print (n.). The process uses blue on white, or white on blue. Figurative sense of "detailed plan" is attested from 1926. As a verb by 1939.
bowsprit (n.): "large spar extending from the bow of a ship with one or more sails of its own," late 13c., probably from Middle Low German bochspret, from boch "bow of a ship" (see bow (n.2)) + spret "pole" (compare Old English spreot "pole," Dutch spriet "spear;" see sprit). French beaupre is a Dutch loan word.
Capri: island in the Bay of Naples, of unknown origin: Latin capra "she-goat," Greek kapros "boar," Etruscan capra "burial place" all have been suggested. As a type of wine, 1877; as a type of pants, 1956 (see Capri pants).
Capri pants: 1956 (said to have been designed c. 1948), from Capri, Italian island; so called perhaps because they were first popular in Capri, which was emerging as a European holiday destination about this time (compare Bermuda shorts).
capriccio (n.): 1690s as a term in music for a kind of free composition, from Italian capriccio "sudden start or motion" (see caprice). Earlier it meant "prank, trick" (1660s); "caprice" (c. 1600).
caprice (n.): "sudden change of mind," 1660s, from French caprice "whim" (16c.), from Italian capriccio "whim," originally "a shivering," possibly from capro "goat," with reference to frisking, from Latin capreolus "wild goat" (see cab). But another theory connects the Italian word with capo "head" + riccio "curl, frizzled," literally "hedgehog" (from Latin ericius). The notion in this case would be of the hair standing on end in horror, hence the person shivering in fear.
capricious (adj.): 1590s, from French capricieux "whimsical" (16c.), from Italian capriccioso, from capriccio (see caprice). Related: Capriciously; capriciousness.
Capricorn: zodiac sign, late Old English, from Latin Capricornus, literally "horned like a goat," from caper (genitive capri) "goat" (see cab) + cornu "horn," from PIE *ker- (1) "horn; head, uppermost part of the body" (see horn (n.)); a loan-translation of Greek Aigokheros, the name of the constellation. Extended 1894 to persons born under the sign.