quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- claret




- claret: [14] Claret was originally a ‘lightcoloured wine’ – pale red (virtually what we would now call rosé), but also apparently yellowish. The word comes ultimately from Latin clārus ‘clear’; from this was derived the verb clārāre, whose past participle was used in the phrase vīnum clārātum ‘clarified wine’. This passed into Old French as vin claret.
Modern French clairet preserves the word’s early sense ‘pale wine, rosé’, but in English by the later 17th century seems to have been transferred to red wine, and since in those days the vast majority of red wine imported into Britain came from Southwest France, and Bordeaux in particular, it was not long before claret came to mean specifically ‘red Bordeaux’.
=> clear - plonk




- plonk: English has two distinct words plonk. The one that means ‘put down firmly and heavily’ [19] was no doubt originally simply an imitation of the sound made by the action (alternative realizations of which are plank and plunk). The other, ‘cheap bog-standard wine’ [20], appears to have originated among Australian troops serving in France during World War I, which lends credence to the supposition that it was based on a French original – generally supposed to be vin blanc ‘white wine’.
It is true that not until the 1930s do we have any written evidence of plonk in this sense, nor of its possible precursor plinkety-plonk (which could have been a comical rhyming variation on vin blanc, and which also produced the shorter-lived spin-off plink in the same sense), and that nowadays the term seems to be applied mainly to red wine rather than white. Nevertheless, there are relevant records of Great-War-period puns (for example von blink as a ‘humorous corruption’ of vin blanc), and the explanation has an air of plausibility.
- chianti (n.)




- also chiante, kind of dry red wine, 1833, from Chianti Mountains of Tuscany, where the wine was made. "[L]oosely applied to various inferior Italian wines" [OED].
- claret (n.)




- mid-15c., "light-colored wine," from Old French (vin) claret "clear (wine), light-colored red wine" (also "sweetened wine," a sense in English from late 14c.), from Latin clarus "clear" (see clear (adj.)). Narrowed English meaning "red wine of Bordeaux" (excluding burgundy) first attested 1700. Used in pugilistic slang for "blood" from c. 1600.
- port (n.4)




- type of sweet dark-red wine, 1690s, shortened from Oporto, city in northwest Portugal from which the wine originally was shipped to England; from O Porto "the port;" (see port (n.1)).
- raspberry (n.)




- 1620s, earlier raspis berry (1540s), possibly from raspise "a sweet rose-colored wine" (mid-15c.), from Anglo-Latin vinum raspeys, origin uncertain, as is the connection between this and Old French raspe, Medieval Latin raspecia, raspeium, also meaning "raspberry." One suggestion is via Old Walloon raspoie "thicket," of Germanic origin. Klein suggests it is via the French word, from a Germanic source akin to English rasp (v.), with an original sense of "rough berry," based on appearance.
A native plant of Europe and Asiatic Russia, the name was applied to a similar vine in North America. Meaning "rude sound" (1890) is shortening of raspberry tart, rhyming slang for fart. - rose (n.2)




- light red wine, 1897, from French vin rosé, literally "pink wine."
- sangria (n.)




- cold drink made from sweetened and diluted red wine, 1954, from Spanish, literally "bleeding," from sangre "blood," from Vulgar Latin sanguem, from Latin sanguis (see sanguinary). The drink so named for its color. Earlier as sangre (1736).
- Shiraz (n.)




- wine made in the district of Shiraz, city in Persia, 1630s. As the name for a red wine made from a type of grape grown in the Rhône valley of France, it is recorded from 1908, from French syrah, the name apparently altered in English on mistaken notion that the grape was brought to Europe from the Middle East by Crusaders. The place name is said to be from Elamite sher "good" + raz "grape."
- coq au vin




- "A casserole of chicken pieces cooked in red wine", French, literally 'cock in wine'.
- vinaceous




- "Of the colour of red wine", Late 17th century: from Latin vinaceus (from vinum 'wine') + -ous.