英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

backgammon: backgammon: [17] Backgammon appears to mean literally ‘back game’, although the reason for the name is far from clear (gammon had been used since at least the early 18th century for a particular type of victory in the game, but it is hard to say whether the term for the victory came from the term for the game, or vice versa). Either way, gammon represents Old English gamen, the ancestor of modern English game. The game backgammon goes back far further than the 17th century, of course, but before that it was called tables in English.
=> game
baluster: baluster: [17] Etymologically, baluster and banister are the same word. Both come ultimately from Greek balāustion ‘pomegranate flower’, which reached English via Latin balaustium, Italian balaustro, and French balustre. The reason for the application of the term to the uprights supporting a staircase handrail is that the lower part of a pomegranate flower has a double curve, inwards at the top and then bulging outwards at the bottom, similar to the design of some early balusters.

A balustrade [17], from Italian balaustrata via French, is a row of balusters. Already by the mid 17th century a transformation of the l to an n had taken place, producing the parallel banister.
=> balustrade, banister
biltong: biltong: [19] Biltong, strips of sun-dried meat – anything from beef to ostrich – used as iron rations in southern Africa, has the unpromising literal meaning ‘buttock-tongue’ (Afrikaans bil is ‘buttock’, tong is ‘tongue’). The reason for the name is supposedly that the meat for biltong was customarily cut from the hind quarters of the animal, and that the coiner found in it, perhaps rather optimistically, a resemblance to the taste of smoked ox tongue.
bodice: bodice: [16] Originally, bodice was identical with bodies – that is, the plural of body. This use of body began early in the 16th century, when it referred to the part of a woman’s dress that covered the trunk, as opposed to the arms; and it soon became restricted specifically to the part above the waist. The reason for the adoption of the plural form (which was often used originally in the phrase pair of bodies) was that the upper portion of women’s dresses was usually in two parts, which fastened down the middle. In the 17th and 18th centuries the term bodice was frequently applied to ‘corsets’.
=> body
cab: cab: [19] Cab is short for cabriolet, a term, borrowed from French, for a light horse-drawn carriage. It comes, via the French verb cabrioler, from Italian capriolare ‘jump in the air’, a derivative of capriolo ‘roebuck’, from Latin capreolus, a diminutive form of caper ‘goat’ (source of English caper ‘leap’ and Capricorn). The reason for its application to the carriage was that the vehicle’s suspension was so springy that it appeared to jump up and down as it went along. From the same source comes the cabriole leg ‘curved furniture leg’ [18], from its resemblance to the front leg of a capering animal.
=> cabriole, cabriolet, caper, capricorn
cadet: cadet: [17] Etymologically, a cadet is a ‘little head’. Its original meaning in English was ‘younger son or brother’, and it came from French cadet, an alteration of a Gascon dialect term capdet ‘chief’. This in turn derived from Vulgar Latin *capitellus ‘little head’, a diminutive form of Latin caput ‘head’ (from which English also gets captain and chief).

The reason for its apparently rather strange change in meaning from ‘chief’ to ‘younger son’ seems to be that the younger sons of Gascon families were in former times sent to the French court to fulfil the role of officers. When English borrowed French cadet, it did so not only in a form that retained the original spelling, but also as caddie or cadee, which originally meant ‘young officer’.

The Scottish version, caddie, gradually developed in meaning over the centuries through ‘person who runs errands’ to, in the 19th century, ‘golfer’s assistant’. Cad, originally ‘unskilled assistant’ [18], is an abbreviation of caddie or cadee.
=> captain, chief
clout: clout: [OE] In Old English, a clout was a patch of cloth put over a hole to mend it. Hence in due course it came to be used simply for a ‘piece of cloth’, and by further extension for a ‘garment’ (as in ‘Ne’er cast a clout till May be out’). However, the reason for its colloquial application to ‘hit, blow’, which dates from the 14th century, is not known, and indeed this may be an entirely different word. As for the word’s ultimate antecedents, it probably comes, along with cleat, clot, cluster, and clutter, from a prehistoric Germanic base *klut-, *kleut-, *klaut-.
=> cleat, clot, cluster, clutter
crisp: crisp: [OE] Historically, crisp means ‘curly’. It was borrowed into Old English from Latin crispus ‘curled’ (which was also the source of French crêpe, acquired by English as crape in the 17th century and then reborrowed in the original French form in the 19th century). The reason for the emergence of the word’s modern sense ‘brittle’, which happened in the early 16th century, is not clear, it may simply be that the sound of the word suggested brittleness.
=> crape, crêpe
curtain: curtain: [13] Latin cortīna meant ‘round vessel, cauldron’, but in the 4th-century Vulgate we find it being used to translate Greek aulaía ‘curtain’. The reason for this considerable semantic leap seems to have been a link perceived to exist between Greek aulaía, a derivative of aulē ‘court’, and Latin cohort- ‘court’ (source of English court), although in fact there is no etymological connection between cohort- and cortīna. The word passed into Old French as cortine, and from there was acquired by English.
daffodil: daffodil: [16] Originally, this word was affodil, and referred to a plant of the lily family, the asphodel; it came from medieval Latin affodillus, and the reason for the change from asph- (or asf-, as it often was in medieval texts) to aff- is probably that the s in medieval manuscripts looked very like an f. The first evidence of its use to refer to a ‘daffodil’, rather than an ‘asphodel’, comes in the middle of the 16th century. It is not entirely clear where the initial d came from, but the likeliest explanation is that daffodil represents Dutch de affodil ‘the daffodil’ (the Dutch were then as now leading exponents of bulb cultivation).
domino: domino: [18] The word domino was borrowed from French, where it originally signified (in the 16th century) a sort of hooded cloak worn by priests. It presumably represents a form of Latin dominus ‘lord, master’, but the reason for the application has never been satisfactorily explained (one suggestion is that it comes from the ritual formula benedicamus Domino ‘let us bless the Lord’).

By the time English acquired it, it had come to mean ‘hooded cloak with a halfmask, worn at masquerades’, and by the 19th century it was being used for the mask itself. It is far from clear whether the application to the game played with small rectangular blocks, which dates in English from the 19th century, represents a new use of the same word or a return to the original Latin, but either way the reason behind the usage is not known.

A possibility that has been advanced is that the winner of the game originally shouted domino! ‘lord!’.
focus: focus: [17] Latin focus meant ‘fireplace’, and in post-classical times it came to be used for ‘fire’ itself – hence French feu, Italian fuoco, Spanish fuego, all meaning ‘fire’, and hence too the English derivatives fuel and fusillade. The first writer known to have used it in its modern sense ‘point of convergence’ was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, in 1604, but the reason for his choice of word is not clear.

It may have been some metaphorical notion of the ‘hearth’ symbolizing the ‘centre of the home’, but it has also been suggested that it may have been preceded and inspired by the use of focus for the ‘burning point’ of a mirror (not actually recorded until somewhat later). The philosopher Thomas Hobbes appears to have introduced the term into English, in 1656. A medieval Latin derivative of focus was focārius, from which French got foyer ‘hearth, home’, borrowed by English in the 19th century for a public entrance hall or lobby.
=> foyer, fuel, fusillade
isotope: isotope: [20] The term isotope for a version of an element with a particular atomic weight was coined in 1913 by the British chemist Frederick Soddy. It means literally ‘equal place’ and was formed from two Greek components, the prefix iso- ‘equal’ and the noun tópos ‘place’ (source of English topic). The reason for the coinage was that although isotopes of the same element have different atomic weights, they occupy the ‘same place’ in the periodic table of elements.
=> topic
knickers: knickers: [19] The use of the word knickers for ‘women’s underpants’ dates back to the 1880s: a writer in the magazine Queen in 1882 recommended ‘flannel knickers in preference to flannel petticoat’, and Home Chat in 1895 was advertising ‘serge knickers for girls from twelve to sixteen’. Over the decades, of course, the precise application of the term has changed with the nature of the garment, and today’s legless briefs are a far cry from the knee-length ‘knickers’ of the 1880s.

They got their name because of their similarity to the original knickers, which were knee-length trousers for men (The Times in 1900 reported the ‘Imperial Yeomanry … in their well-made, loosely-fitting khaki tunics and riding knickers’). And knickers itself was short for knickerbockers, a term used for such trousers since the 1850s. This came from Diedrich Knickerbocker, a fictitious Dutch-sounding name invented by the American writer Washington Irving for the ‘author’ of his History of New York 1809.

The reason for the application seems to have been that the original knickerbockers resembled the sort of kneebreeches supposedly worn by Dutchmen.
lamprey: lamprey: [12] The words lamprey and limpet [OE] come from the same source: medieval Latin lamprēda. This was an alteration of an earlier, 5th-century lampetra, which has been plausibly explained as literally ‘stone-licker’ (from Latin lambēre ‘lick’, source of English lambent, and petra ‘stone’). The reason for applying such a name to the limpet is fairly obvious – it clings fast to rocks – but in fact the lamprey too holds on to rocks, with its jawless sucking mouth.
=> lambent, limpet, petrol
laudanum: laudanum: [16] Laudanum, the name of a tincture of opium, a forerunner of modern heroin and crack, was coined by the 16th-century Swiss physician Paracelsus. He used it for a medicine of his own devising which according to the prescription he gave out contained all sorts of expensive ingredients such as gold leaf and pearls. It was generally believed, however, that the reason for the medicine’s effectiveness was a generous measure of opium in the mixture, and so in due course laudanum came to have its current use.

It is not known where Paracelsus got the name from, but he could well have based it on Latin lādanum ‘resin’, which came from Greek ládanon, a derivative of ledon ‘mastic’.
mammoth: mammoth: [18] Mammoth is a Russian contribution to English. The word was borrowed from early modern Russian mammot, an adaptation of Tatar mamont ‘earth’ (the reason for the animal being so named is that the first remains of mammoths to be found were dug out of the frozen soil of Siberia). The adjectival use of the word for ‘huge’ dates from the early 19th century (‘The dancing very bad; the performers all had mammoth legs’, private diary of Sir Robert Wilson, 1814).
pond: pond: [13] Pond is historically the same word as pound ‘enclosure’. The differentiation between the two was established early on, although pound continued to be used for ‘pond’ in Scotland and in some English dialects until quite recently. The common denominator is that ponds were originally specifically used for keeping fish in. The reason for the phonetic change from pound to pond is not known.
=> pound
scent: scent: [14] Scent comes ultimately from the same source that gave English sensation, sense, sentient, and sentiment – namely, Latin sentīre ‘feel, perceive’. It arrived via Old French sentir, and at first was sent in English (‘Fishes lurking among the stones [the dogs] seek out with their sent’, James Dalrymple, Leslie’s history of Scotland 1596). The modern sc- spelling did not begin to emerge until the 17th century. It is not known what the reason for it was, although it may have been a resolution of a possible confusion with the past form of send.
=> sensation, sense, sentient, sentiment
tropic: tropic: [14] The etymological notion underlying the word tropic is of ‘turning’, and the reason for its application to the hot regions of the world is that the two lines of latitude which bound them (the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn) mark the points at which the sun reaches its zenith at the solstices and then ‘turns’ back. The word comes via Latin tropicus from Greek tropikós, a derivative of tropé ‘turning’ (source also of English trophy and related to the second syllable of contrive).
=> contrive, trophy, troubadour
verdigris: verdigris: [14] Etymologically, verdigris means ‘green of Greece’. It comes from Old French vertegrez, a conflation of vert de Grece ‘green of Greece’ (vert came from Latin viridis ‘green’, which also gave English verdant [16] and verdure [14] and may be related to Old English wīse ‘sprout, stalk’, Old Norse vísir ‘bud, sprout’, and Lithuanian veisti ‘propagate’). The reason for the application of the term to the patina on copper is not known.
=> verdant, verdure
aspartame (n.): commercial name of an artificial sweetener, 1973, from aspartic acid (1836), formed irregularly from asparagine (1813), a compound found in asparagus, beet-root, etc., which was named from asparagus + chemical suffix -ine (2). The reason for -ame is unknown.
ballpark (n.): "baseball stadium," 1899, from (base)ball + park (n.). Figurative sense of "acceptable range of approximation" first recorded 1954, originally in the jargon of atomic weapons scientists, perhaps originally referring to area within which a missile was expected to return to earth; the reference is to broad but reasonably predictable dimensions.
The result, according to the author's estimate, is a stockpile equivalent to one billion tons of TNT. Assuming this estimate is "in the ball park," clearly there is valid reason for urging candor on the part of our government. [Ralph E. Lapp, "Atomic Candor," in "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," October 1954]
beaver (n.): Old English beofor, befer (earlier bebr), from Proto-Germanic *bebruz (cognates: Old Saxon bibar, Old Norse bjorr, Middle Dutch and Dutch bever, Low German bever, Old High German bibar, German Biber), from PIE *bhebhrus, reduplication of root *bher- (3) "brown, bright" (cognates: Lithuanian bebrus, Czech bobr, Welsh befer; see bear (n.) for the likely reason for this). Gynecological sense ("female genitals, especially with a display of pubic hair") is 1927 British slang, transferred from earlier meaning "a bearded man" (1910), from the appearance of split beaver pelts.
cause (n.): c. 1200, "reason for action, grounds for action; motive," from Old French cause "cause, reason; lawsuit, case in law" (12c.), and directly from Latin causa "a cause; a reason; interest; judicial process, lawsuit," which is of unknown origin. In English, sense of "matter of concern; side taken in controversy" is from c. 1300; that of "the source of an effect" is early 14c.; meaning "reason for something taking place" is late 14c. Cause célèbre "celebrated legal case" is 1763, from French. Cause why? "for what reason?" is in Chaucer.
condolences (n.): "formal declaration of sympathy," 1670s, plural of condolence. Reason for the plural is unclear; earliest references are to expressions from groups of persons; perhaps the habit stuck.
ephedra (n.): genus of low, branchy desert shrubs, 1914, from Modern Latin (1737) from Greek ephedra, a name given by Pliny to the horsetail, literally "sitting upon," from fem. of ephedros "sitting or seated upon; sitting at or near," from epi "on" (see epi-) + hedra "seat, base, chair; face of a geometric solid" (see sedentary). The reason for the name is not known.
excuse (n.): late 14c., "pretext, justification," from Old French excuse, from excuser (see excuse (v.)). The sense of "that which serves as a reason for being excused" is recorded from mid-15c. As a noun, excusation is the earlier form (mid-14c.).
foxglove (n.): Old English foxes glofa, literally "fox's glove." The flower shape is that of the finger of a glove (compare German Fingerhut "foxglove," literally "thimble," the source of digitalis). The reason for fox is lost in the mute past of English herb-lore. Compare Old English plant names foxesfot ("fox's foot") "xiphion;" foxesclate ("fox's bur") "burdock."
Humphrey: masc. proper name, from Old English Hunfrið, probably from Proto-Germanic *hun "strength" + Old English frið "peace." To dine with Duke Humphrey (17c.) meant to go without a meal, though the reason for the expression now is obscure.
I (pron.): 12c. shortening of Old English ic, first person singular nominative pronoun, from Proto-Germanic *ek/*ik (cognates: Old Frisian ik, Old Norse ek, Norwegian eg, Danish jeg, Old High German ih, German ich, Gothic ik), from PIE *eg-, nominative form of the first person singular pronoun (cognates: Sanskrit aham, Hittite uk, Latin ego (source of French Je), Greek ego, Russian ja, Lithuanian aš). Reduced to i by mid-12c. in northern England, it began to be capitalized mid-13c. to mark it as a distinct word and avoid misreading in handwritten manuscripts.
The reason for writing I is ... the orthographic habit in the middle ages of using a 'long i' (that is, j or I) whenever the letter was isolated or formed the last letter of a group; the numeral 'one' was written j or I (and three iij, etc.), just as much as the pronoun. [Otto Jespersen, "Growth and Structure of the English Language," p.233]
The form ich or ik, especially before vowels, lingered in northern England until c. 1400 and survived in southern dialects until 18c. The dot on the "small" letter -i- began to appear in 11c. Latin manuscripts, to distinguish the letter from the stroke of another letter (such as -m- or -n-). Originally a diacritic, it was reduced to a dot with the introduction of Roman type fonts. The letter -y- also was written with a top dot in Old English and early Middle English, when it tended to be written with a closed loop at the top and thus was almost indistinguishable from the lower-case thorn (þ).
love apple (n.): "tomato," 1570s, corresponding to French pomme d'amour, German liebesapfel, but the reason for the term remains obscure. One guess is that it is a corruption of Italian pomo de'Mori or Spanish pome dei Moro, literally "Moorish apple."
lupin (n.): plant of the genus lupinus, late 14c., from Latin lupinus, name of the plant, noun use of an adjective meaning "of a wolf" (see lupine). The reason for association with the animal is unclear; perhaps it was so called because of a belief that the plants were harmful to soil (compare lupus).
mechanization (n.): 1834, from mechanize + -ation.
In our country, the ancient languages are studied, to a sad extent, as a mere exercise in the technics of etymology, syntax and prosody; and when thus pursued, there can be no good reason for so great a sacrifice of time and labor, or for that mechanization (if we may make a term) of mind which is the natural result. ["American Annals of Education and Instruction," December 1834]
Nick: masc. proper name, familiar form of Nicholas. As "the devil" by 1640s, but the reason for it is obscure.
Pig Latin (n.): childish deformed language (there are many different versions), by 1889 (hog Latin in same sense by 1807).
The animals play quite an important part in the naming [of children's languages], as the hog, dog, fly, goose, pigeon, pig, all give names, with Mr. Hog leading. Among the names the Latins take the lead, and Hog Latin leads the list, being accredited as naming nearly as many languages as all the other names combined. Besides Hog Latin, there is Dog Latin, Pig Latin, Goose Latin, and Bum Latin. Then there is Greekish and Peddlers' French and Pigeon English. ... Very few can give any reason for the naming of the languages. In fact, no one can fully say where the great majority of names came from, for in most cases in the naming the following pretty well expresses the difficulty: "It was born before I was. I can't tell how young I was when I first heard of it." ["The Secret Language of Children," in "The North Western Monthly," October 1897]
Red Sea (n.): the Greek thalassa erythra; the reason for the name is unknown; speculation has traced it to: 1. algae in coastal waters; 2. sandstone rock formations on the shores; 3. a tribal name; 4. ancient association of "red" with "south" (as "black" with "north").
sepulchre (n.): also sepulcher, c. 1200, "tomb, burial place," especially the cave where Jesus was buried outside Jerusalem (Holy Sepulcher or Saint Sepulcher), from Old French sepulcre "tomb; the Holy Sepulchre" (11c.), from Latin sepulcrum "grave, tomb, place where a corpse is buried," from root of sepelire "to bury, embalm," originally "to perform rituals on a corpse," from PIE *sep-el-yo-, suffixed form of root *sep- (2) "to handle (skillfully), to hold (reverently);" cognates: Sanskrit saparyati "honors." No reason for the -ch- spelling, which dates to 13c. Whited sepulchre "hypocrite" is from Matt. xxiii.27.
strawberry (n.): Old English streawberige, streaberie; see straw + berry. There is no corresponding compound in other Germanic languages; the reason for the name is uncertain, but perhaps it is in reference to the tiny chaff-like external seeds which cover the fruit. A cognate Old English name was eorðberge "earth-berry" (compare Modern German erdbeere). As a color adjective from 1670s. Strawberry blonde is attested from 1884. Strawberry mark (1847) so called for its resemblance.
sugar (n.): late 13c., sugre, from Old French sucre "sugar" (12c.), from Medieval Latin succarum, from Arabic sukkar, from Persian shakar, from Sanskrit sharkara "ground or candied sugar," originally "grit, gravel" (cognate with Greek kroke "pebble"). The Arabic word also was borrowed in Italian (zucchero), Spanish (azucar, with the Arabic article), and German (Old High German zucura, German Zucker), and its forms are represented in most European languages (such as Serbian cukar, Polish cukier, Russian sakhar).

Its Old World home was India (Alexander the Great's companions marveled at the "honey without bees") and it remained exotic in Europe until the Arabs began to cultivate it in Sicily and Spain; not until after the Crusades did it begin to rival honey as the West's sweetener. The Spaniards in the West Indies began raising sugar cane in 1506; first grown in Cuba 1523; first cultivated in Brazil 1532. The reason for the -g- in the English word is obscure (OED compares flagon, from French flacon). The pronunciation shift from s- to sh- is probably from the initial long vowel sound syu- (as in sure).

As a type of chemical compound from 1826. Slang "euphemistic substitute for an imprecation" [OED] is attested from 1891. As a term of endearment, first recorded 1930. Sugar-cane is from 1560s. Sugar-maple is from 1731. Sugar loaf was originally a moulded conical mass of refined sugar (early 15c.); now obsolete, but sense extended 17c. to hills, hats, etc. of that shape.
sundae (n.): 1897, American English, thought to be an alteration of Sunday, perhaps re-spelled in deference to religious feelings; but the reason for the name is uncertain; perhaps "ice cream left over from Sunday, on sale later." For a fuller account of the speculations, see H.L. Mencken, "The American Language," Supplement I (1945), pp.376-7.
unbeknownst (adj.): 1833, vulgar formation from unbeknown (1630s). No clear reason for the -st, but since 19c. this has become the dominant form.
verdigris (n.): c. 1300, vertegrez, from Old French verte grez (13c.), verte de Grece (late 12c.), literally "green of Greece," from obsolete French verd, from Latin viridis (see verdure). The reason for it being called that is not known. In other languages, "green of Spain" (German grünspan, Danish spanskgrönt, Dutch spaansch-groen), from Medieval Latin viride Hispanum. Current spelling in English is from 1789. In chemistry, confined to a basic copper acetate; popularly applied to the green encrustation on copper or brass exposed to the air.
Mary Celeste: "An American cargo ship that was found afloat in the North Atlantic in December 1872 in perfect condition but abandoned. The fate of the crew and the reason for the abandonment of the ship remain a mystery", The ship was called the Mary Celeste, but the form Marie Celeste was popularized by an account written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1884, and is now commoner in allusive use.