英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

Frisbee [Frisbee 词源字典]: Frisbee: [20] The name of this spinning plastic disc had its origin in a catching game played in Bridgeport, Connecticut in the 1950s. The participants were no doubt not the first to notice that an aerodynamically volatile flat disc produces more interesting and challenging results than a spherical object, but it was their particular choice of missiles that had farreaching terminological results: they used pie tins from the local Frisbie bakery. The idea for turning the dish into a marketable plastic product belonged to Fred Morrison, and he registered Frisbee (doubtless more commercially grabby than Frisbie) as a trademark in 1959.
[Frisbee etymology, Frisbee origin, 英语词源]
gramophone: gramophone: [19] The term gramophone was registered as a trademark in 1887 by the German-born American inventor Emil Berliner for a sound recording and reproducing device he had developed using a disc (as opposed to the cylinder of Edison’s phonograph). He coined it simply by reversing the elements of phonogram, a term adopted for a ‘sound recording’ in the early 1880s and composed of descendants of Greek phōné ‘voice, sound’ and grámma ‘something written’. It seems to have begun to give way to record player in the mid 1950s.
tabloid: tabloid: [19] Tabloid originated as a trade-name for a brand of tablets of condensed medicine, registered in 1884 by Burroughs, Wellcome and Company. It was an alteration of tablet [14], which came from Old French tablete, a diminutive form of table (source of English table). This originally denoted a ‘slab for writing on or inscribing’. Such slabs would have been flat and often quite small, and in the late 16th century the term came to be applied to a ‘flat compressed piece of something’ – such as soap or medicine.

The notion of ‘compression’ or ‘condensation’ underlies the use of tabloid for newspapers of small page size and ‘condensed’ versions of news stories, which emerged at the beginning of the 20th century (‘He advocated tabloid journalism’, Westminster gazette 1 January 1901).
=> table
tarmac: tarmac: [20] The term tarmac commemorates the name of John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836), a Scottish civil engineer who developed a method of levelling roads and covering them with gravel. Setting the gravel in tar produced in the 1880s the term tarmacadam, and in 1903 the abbreviated form tarmac was registered as a trademark. By 1919 the word was being used in British English as a synonym for ‘runway’.
technical: technical: [17] Greek tékhnē denoted ‘skill, art, craft, trade’ (it may have come from the Indo- European base *tek- ‘shape, make’, which also produced Greek téktōn ‘carpenter, builder’, source of English architect and tectonic [17]). From it was derived the adjective tekhnikós, which passed into English via Latin technicus as technic (now obsolete) and technical. Technique [19] comes from a noun use of the French adjective technique ‘technical’. From the same source come technicolour [20], based on the trademark Technicolor (registered in 1929), and technology [17].
=> architect, technique, tectonic, text
thermometer: thermometer: [17] Greek thérmē meant ‘heat’ (it came from prehistoric Indo-European *ghwerm-, *ghworm-, which probably also produced English warm). From it was formed French thermomètre (first recorded in 1624), which was borrowed into English in the early 1630s. The same source produced English therm [19] and thermal [18]; and thermos (from the related Greek thermós ‘hot’) was registered as a trademark for a vacuum flask in 1907.
=> warm
tweed: tweed: [19] The story attached to the origin of tweed is that it resulted from a misreading of tweel, or perhaps more plausibly the past form tweeled, Scottish variants of twill or twilled, under the influence of the name of the Scottish river Tweed. Early accounts date its coinage to 1831, and ascribe it to the London cloth merchant James Locke (although Locke himself in his book Tweed and Don 1860 does not make any such claim). The term was in general use by 1850, and it was registered as a trademark. (Twill itself is etymologically ‘two-threaded’ cloth; it is a compound formed from twi- ‘two’ and Latin līcium ‘thread’.)
xerox: xerox: [20] Greek xērós meant ‘dry’ (it may be the ultimate source of English elixir, and is perhaps distantly related to English serene and serenade). From it was derived in the 1940s the term xerography, which denotes a process of photographic reproduction that does not involve the use of liquid developers. And xerography in turn formed the basis of xerox, which was registered as a trademark for the process in 1952 by the Haloid Company of Rochester, New York (later renamed the Xerox Corporation).
=> elixir, serenade, serene
Airedale: type of terrier, 1880, named for Airedale, a district in West Riding, Yorkshire.
Name registered by Kennel Club (1886), for earlier Bingley (where first bred), or broken-haired terrier. [Weekley]
album (n.): 1650s, from Latin album "white color, whiteness," neuter of albus "white" (see alb). In classical times "a blank tablet on which the Pontifex Maximus registered the principal events of the year; a list of names." Revived 16c. by German scholars whose custom was to keep an album amicorum of colleagues' signatures; meaning then expanded into "book to collect souvenirs." According to Johnson, "a book in which foreigners have long been accustomed to insert autographs of celebrated people." Photographic albums first recorded 1859. Meaning "long-playing gramophone record" is by 1951, because the sleeves they came in resembled large albums.
Ambien: trade name for prescription medication Zolpidem, registered 1993 in U.S., no doubt suggested by ambient or words like it in French.
Amex: blend of American Express, trademark registered in U.S. 1950 by American Express Co., originally an express mail service. Its credit card dates from 1958.
Band-Aid (n.): trademark registered 1924 by Johnson & Johnson for a stick-on gauze pad or strip. See band (n.1) + aid (n.). The British equivalent was Elastoplast. Figurative sense of "temporary or makeshift solution to a problem, pallative" (often lower case, sometimes bandaid) is first recorded 1968; as an adjective, from 1970.
Benzedrine (n.): trade name of a type of amphetamine, 1933, registered as a proprietary name 1935 by Smith, Kline & French Laboratories, from benzoic (see benzene) + chemical suffix -edrine from ephedrine, etc. It is a carbonate of benzyl-methyl-carbinamine. Slang shortening benny first attested 1955.
deep-freeze (n.): registered trademark (U.S. Patent Office, 1941) of a type of refrigerator; used generically for "cold storage" since 1949.
fiber (n.): late 14c., fibre "a lobe of the liver," also "entrails," from Medieval Latin fibre, from Latin fibra "a fiber, filament; entrails," which is of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Latin filum "a thread, string" (see file (n.1)) or from root of findere "to split" (see fissure).

Meaning "thread-like structure in animal bodies" is from c. 1600 (in plants, 1660s); hence figurative use in reference to force or toughness (1630s). As "textile material," 1827. Fiberboard is from 1897; Fiberglas is attested from 1937, U.S. registered trademark name; in generic use, with lower-case f- and double -s, by 1941. Fiber optics is from 1956.
Frisbee (n.): 1957, trademark registered 1959 by Wham-O Company; the prototype was modeled on pie tins from Mrs. Frisbie's Pies, made by the Frisbie Bakery of Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S. Middlebury College students began tossing them around in the 1930s (though Yale and Princeton also claim to have discovered their aerodynamic qualities).
Thirteen years ago the Wham-O Manufacturing Company of San Gabriel, Calif., ... brought out the first Frisbee. Wham-O purchased the rights from a Los Angeles building inspector named Fred Morrison, who in turn had been inspired by the airworthy pie tins of the Frisbie Bakery in Bridgeport, Conn. (which went out of business in March of 1958). He changed the spelling to avoid legal problems. ["Sports Illustrated," Aug. 3, 1970]
The family name is attested in English records from 1226, from a place name in Leicestershire (Frisby on the Wreak), attested from 1086, from Old Danish, meaning "farmstead or village of the Frisians" (Old Norse Frisa, genitive plural of Frisr; see Frisian). Also see by (prep.).
google (v.): "to search (something) on the Google search engine," 2000 (do a google on was used by 1999). The domain google.com was registered in 1997. According to the company, the name is a play on googol and reflects the "mission" of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin "to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web." A verb google was an early 20c. cricket term in reference to a type of breaking ball, from googly.
heroin (n.): 1898, from German Heroin, coined 1898 as trademark registered by Friedrich Bayer & Co. for their morphine substitute, traditionally from Greek heros (see hero (n.1)) because of the euphoric feeling the drug provides, but no evidence for this seems to have been found so far.
A new hypnotic, to which the name of "heroin" has been given, has been tried in the medical clinic of Professor Gerhardt in Berlin. ["The Lancet," Dec. 3, 1898]
hush (v.): 1540s, variant of Middle English huisht (late 14c.), probably of imitative origin, with terminal -t lost probably by being mistaken for a past tense suffix. Hush-hush (adj.) is 1916 reduplication. Related: Hushed; hushing. The noun is attested from 1680s. As an interjection meaning "be quiet," attested by c. 1600. To hush (one's) mouth "be quiet" is attested from 1878. Hush up "suppress talk for secrecy's sake" is from 1630s. Hush-money is attested from 1709. Hush-puppy "deep-fried ball of cornmeal batter" first attested 1899; as a type of lightweight soft shoe, it is a proprietary name, registered 1961.
Jello (n.): from Jell-O, trademark for powdered gelatin food, registered 1934 by The Jell-o Company of Canada, Ltd., Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Ked: proprietary name of a brand of canvas sneakers, 1917, registered by United States Rubber Co., N.Y. Based on Latin ped-, stem of pes "foot" (see foot (n.))
"We wanted to call it Peds, but ... it came too close to ... other brand names. So we batted it around for awhile and decided on the hardest-sounding letter in the alphabet, K, and called it Keds, that was in 1916." [J.Healey, in R.L. Cohen, "Footwear Industry," x.93]
Kevlar: registered trademark (DuPont) for a synthetic fiber developed there c. 1965.
Kleenex (n.): 1925, proprietary name, registered by Cellucotton Products Company, Neenah, Wisconsin, U.S.; later Kimberly-Clark Corp. An arbitrary alteration of clean + brand-name suffix -ex.
Kodak: brand of camera, arbitrary coinage by U.S. inventor George Eastman (1854-1932), U.S. trademark registered Sept. 4, 1888. In 1890s, practically synonymous with camera and also used as a verb. Kodachrome, registered trademark for a method of color photography, 1915; the product was discontinued in 2006.
lite (adj.): alternative spelling of light (adj.1), by 1962. Used from at least 1917 in product names, often as a variation of light (n.).
The word Adjusto-Lite for portable electric lamps was opposed by the user of a trade mark Auto-lite registered before the date of use claimed by the applicant. ["The Trade-Mark Reporter," 1922]
Lycra: elastic polyurethane fiber, 1955, proprietary name (registered by E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company, Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.) of an elastic polyurethane fiber.
magic (adj.): late 14c., from Old French magique, from Latin magicus "magic, magical," from Greek magikos, from magike (see magic (n.)). Magic carpet first attested 1816. Magic Marker (1951) is a registered trademark (U.S.) by Speedry Products, Inc., Richmond Hill, N.Y. Magic lantern "optical instrument whereby a magnified image is thrown upon a wall or screen" is 1690s, from Modern Latin laterna magica.
magnum (n.): 1788, "bottle containing two quarts of wine or spirits," from Latin magnum, neuter of magnus "great in size" (see magnate). Registered 1935 by Smith & Wesson Inc., of Springfield, Massachusetts, as the name of a powerful type of handgun.
opry (n.): 1914, U.S. dialectal pronunciation of opera. Especially in Grand Ole Opry, a radio broadcast of country music from Nashville, registered as a proprietary name 1950.
pogo (n.): 1921, originally a registered trademark (Germany, 1919), of unknown origin, perhaps formed from elements of the names of the designers.
Hopping Stilts Are the New French Playthings. ... For France and especially Paris has taken to the "pogo" stick, a stick equipped with two rests for the feet. Inside of the stick is a strong spring so that the "pogoer" may take a series of jumps without straining his powers. The doctors claim that the jarring produced by the successive jumps do not serve to injure the spine, as one might at first suppose. This jumping habit is spreading through France and England and the eastern part of the United States. ["Illustrated World," Sept., 1921]
The fad periodically returned in U.S., but with fading intensity. As a leaping style of punk dance, attested from 1977. The newspaper comic strip by Walt Kelly debuted in 1948 and ran daily through 1975.
popsicle (n.): 1923, trademark name registered by Frank Epperson of Oakland, Calif., presumably from (lolly)pop + (ic)icle.
R: In a circle, meaning "registered (trademark)," first incorporated in U.S. statues 1946. R&R "rest and relaxation," first recorded 1953, American English; R&B "rhythm and blues" (type of popular music) first attested 1949, American English.
If all our r's that are written are pronounced, the sound is more common than any other in English utterance (over seven per cent.); the instances of occurrence before a vowel, and so of universal pronunciation, are only half as frequent. There are localities where the normal vibration of the tip of the tongue is replaced by one of the uvula, making a guttural trill, which is still more entitled to the name of "dog's letter" than is the ordinary r; such are considerable parts of France and Germany; the sound appears to occur only sporadically in English pronunciation. [Century Dictionary]

The moment we encounter the added r's of purp or dorg in our reading we know that we have to do with humor, and so with school-marm. The added consonants are supposed to be spoken, if the words are uttered, but, as a matter of fact, they are less often uttered than seen. The words are, indeed, largely visual forms; the humor is chiefly for the eye. [Louise Pound, "The Humorous 'R,'" "American Mercury," October 1924]
She goes on to note that in British humorous writing, -ar "popularly indicates the sound of the vowel in father" and formations like larf (for laugh) "are to be read with the broad vowel but no uttered r." She also quotes Henry James on the characteristic prominence of the medial -r- sound (which tends to be dropped in England and New England) in the speech of the U.S. Midwest, "under some strange impulse received toward consonantal recovery of balance, making it present even in words from which it is absent, bringing it in everywhere as with the small vulgar effect of a sort of morose grinding of the back teeth."
Realtor (n.): 1916, "real estate agent," American English, coined by real estate agent Charles N. Chadbourn of Minneapolis, Minn., to distinguish the legitimate section of the business; popularized 1920s; patented as Realtor by the National Association of Real Estate Boards.
The 1916 Convention of the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) approved the adoption of the term as the official designation of an active member of the Association. In 1920 the District Court of Hennepin County, Minnesota, decided in favor of the Realtors in a case against a telephone directory publisher that had indiscriminately used the word in listings. The court asserted that the word "had never been used in any way whatsoever until so invented" and could thus be used only by those duly licensed by the National Association of Real Estate Boards. Until the Lanham Acts of 1948 changed federal patent regulations to allow protection for registered collective marks, the National Association fought and won sixteen cases on the local and state levels to protect its symbolic property. [Jeffrey M. Hornstein, "The Rise of Realtor," in "The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class," New York, 2001]
register (v.): late 14c. (transitive), "enter in a listing," from Old French registrer "note down, include" (13c.) and directly from Medieval Latin registrare, from registrum (see register (n.)). Intransitive sense, of instruments, from 1797; of persons and feelings, "make an impression," from 1901. Meaning "to enter one's name in a list" for some purpose is from 1940. Related: Registered; registering. Registered nurse attested from 1879.
rent (v.): mid-15c., "to rent out property, grant possession and enjoyment of in exchange for a consideration paid," from Old French renter "pay dues to," or from rent (n.1). Related: Rented; renting. Earlier (mid-14c.) in the more general sense of "provide with revenue." Sense of "to take and hold in exchange for rent" is from 1520s. Intransitive sense of "be leased for rent" is from 1784. Prefix rent-a- first attested 1921, mainly of businesses that rented various makes of car (Rentacar is a trademark registered in U.S. 1924); extended to other "temporary" uses since 1961.
Rollerblade (n.): 1985, a registered proprietary name in U.S., from roller + blade (n.). As a verb by 1988. Related: Rollerblading.
Rolls-Royce (n.): registered 1908 as trademark, named for designers C.S. Rolls (1877-1910) and Sir Henry Royce (1863-1933). Figurative use from 1916 for any product deemed to be of high quality. Shortened form Rolls first attested 1928.
Scrabble (n.): board game, 1949, proprietary name (registered U.S.), probably from scribble-scrabble "hasty writing" (1580s), a reduplication of scribble (n.).
spam (n.): proprietary name registered by Geo. A. Hormel & Co. in U.S., 1937; probably a conflation of spiced ham. Soon extended to other kinds of canned meat.

In the sense of "Internet junk mail" it was coined by Usenet users after March 31, 1993, when Usenet administrator Richard Depew inadvertently posted the same message 200 times to a discussion group. The term had been used in online text games, and ultimately it is from a 1970 sketch on the British TV show "Monty Python's Flying Circus" wherein a reading of a restaurant's menu devolves into endless repetitions of "spam."
tampon (n.): "plug of cotton to stanch a flow of blood (especially from the vagina)," 1848, from French tampon, from Middle French tampon "plug" (see tampion). Tampax, proprietary name registered in U.S. 1932, is based on tampon.
technicolor (n.): "vivid color," 1946, earlier as a trademark name (Technicolor, registered in U.S. 1917) for a process of making color movies, from technical + color (n.). As an adjective from 1940.
Teflon (n.): commercially important synthetic polymer, 1945, proprietary name registered in U.S. by du Pont, from chemical name (poly)te(tra)fl(uoroethylene) + arbitrary ending -on; popularized as a coating of non-stick pans in 1960s; metaphoric extension, especially in reference to U.S. President Ronald Reagan, is attested from an Aug. 2, 1983, speech on the floor of Congress by Pat Schroeder.
Thermos (n.): trademark registered in Britain 1907, invented by Sir James Dewar (patented 1904 but not named then), from Greek thermos "hot" (see thermal). Dewar built the first one in 1892, but it was first manufactured commercially in Germany in 1904, when two glass blowers formed Thermos GmbH. Supposedly the company sponsored a contest to name the thing, and a Munich resident won with a submission of Thermos.
Trojan (adj.): Old English Troian "of or pertaining to ancient Troy," from Latin Trojanus, from Troia, Troja "Troy," from the Greek name for the city, said to be from Tros, name of a king of Phrygia, the mythical founder of Troy. Trojan horse was figurative of ambush-from-within in Roman times (equus Troianus); attested in English from 1570s; the computer virus sense is attested by 1982.

As a noun from mid-14c., "inhabitant of ancient Troy;" in early modern English, the noun could mean "a determined fellow, one who fights or works hard," from the Trojans' long resistance to the Greeks in the Trojan War, but also in 17c., it was a colloquial term for "person of dissolute life, carousing companion." The trade name for a brand of prophylactic contraceptive was registered 1927 in U.S.
TV (n.): 1948, shortened form of television (q.v.). Spelled out as tee-vee from 1949. TV dinner (1954), made to be eaten from a tray while watching a television set, is a proprietary name registered by Swanson & Sons, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Tylenol (n.): introduced 1955 as the name of an elixir for children, trade name originally registered by McNeil Laboratories, Philadelphia, Pa., from elements abstracted from N-acetyl-para-aminophenol, the chemical name of its active compound.
Wicca (n.): An Old English masc. noun meaning "male witch, wizard, soothsayer, sorcerer, astrologer, magician;" see witch. Use of the word in modern contexts traces to English folklorist Gerald Gardner (1884-1964), who is said to have joined circa 1939 an occult group in New Forest, Hampshire, England, for which he claimed an unbroken tradition to medieval times. Gardner seems to have first used it in print in 1954, in his book "Witchcraft Today" ("Witches were the Wica or wise people, with herbal knowledge and a working occult teaching usually used for good ...."). In published and unpublished material, he apparently only ever used the word as a mass noun referring to adherents of the practice and not as the name of the practice itself. Some of his followers continue to use it in this sense. According to Gardner's book "The Meaning of Witchcraft" (1959), the word, as used in the initiation ceremony, played a key role in his experience:
I realised that I had stumbled upon something interesting; but I was half-initiated before the word, 'Wica' which they used hit me like a thunderbolt, and I knew where I was, and that the Old Religion still existed. And so I found myself in the Circle, and there took the usual oath of secrecy, which bound me not to reveal certain things.
In the late 1960s the term came into use as the title of a modern pagan movement associated with witchcraft. The first printed reference in this usage seems to be 1969, in "The Truth About Witchcraft" by freelance author Hans Holzer:
If the practice of the Old Religion, which is also called Wicca (Craft of the Wise), and thence, witchcraft, is a reputable and useful cult, then it is worthy of public interest.
And, quoting witch Alex Sanders:
"No, a witch wedding still needs a civil ceremony to make it legal. Wicca itself as a religion is not registered yet. But it is about time somebody registered it, I think. I've done all I can to call attention to our religion."
Sanders was a highly visible representative of neo-pagan Witchcraft in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During this time he appears to have popularized use of the term in this sense. Later books c. 1989 teaching modernized witchcraft using the same term account for its rise and popularity, especially in U.S.
Wiffle: hollow, perforated plastic ball, registered trademark name (The Wiffle Ball Inc., Shelton, Connecticut, U.S.), claiming use from 1954. According to the company, designed in 1953 by David N. Mullany "in response to a lack of field space and numerous broken windows by his baseball-playing son," the name based on whiff (q.v.), baseball slang for a missed swing.
yo-yo (n.): 1915, apparently from a language of the Philippines. Registered as a trademark in Vancouver, Canada, in 1932, the year the first craze for them began (subsequent fads 1950s, 1970s, 1998). The toy itself is much older and was earlier known as bandalore (1802), a word of obscure origin, "but it was from American contact in the Philippines that the first commercial development was established" [Century Dictionary]. Figurative sense of any "up-and-down movement" is first recorded 1932. Meaning "stupid person" is recorded from 1970. The verb in the figurative sense is attested from 1967.