英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

ant [ant 词源字典]: ant: [OE] The word ant appears to carry the etymological sense ‘creature that cuts off or bites off’. Its Old English form, æmette, was derived from a hypothetical Germanic compound *aimaitjōn, formed from the prefix *ai- ‘off, away’ and the root *mait- ‘cut’ (modern German has the verb meissen ‘chisel, carve’): thus, ‘the biter’.

The Old English word later developed along two distinct strands: in one, it became emmet, which survived into the 20th century as a dialectal form; while in the other it progressed through amete and ampte to modern English ant. If the notion of ‘biting’ in the naming of the ant is restricted to the Germanic languages (German has ameise), the observation that it and its nest smell of urine has been brought into play far more widely.

The Indo-European root *meigh-, from which ultimately we get micturate ‘urinate’ [18], was also the source of several words for ‘ant’, including Greek múrmēx (origin of English myrmecology ‘study of ants’, and also perhaps of myrmidon [14] ‘faithful follower’, from the Myrmidons, a legendary Greek people who loyally followed their king Achilles in the Trojan war, and who were said originally to have been created from ants), Latin formīca (hence English formic acid [18], produced by ants, and formaldehyde [19]), and Danish myre.

It also produced Middle English mire ‘ant’, the underlying meaning of which was subsequently reinforced by the addition of piss to give pismire, which again survived dialectally into the 20th century.
[ant etymology, ant origin, 英语词源]
bimbo: bimbo: [20] Bimbo most recently made its mark on the English language in the 1980s, when it was in heavy use among journalists to denigrate buxom young women of limited IQ who sold the secrets of their affairs with the rich and famous to the press. It was by no means a newcomer, though. It first crossed the Atlantic to America, from Italy, in the late 1910s. In Italian it means ‘baby’, and US slang took it up in the colloquial sense of baby, for referring to a usually hapless fellow.

By the 1920s it was being applied equally to young women, especially promiscuous or empty-headed ones (the latter feature probably reinforced by the appearance of dumbo ‘fool’ in the early 1930s).
charlatan: charlatan: [17] Charlatan is of Italian origin. It comes from the verb cialare ‘chatter, prattle’. Its original application was to the patter of salesmen trying to sell quack remedies, and hence Italian ciarlatano at first referred to such vendors, and then by extension to any dispenser of impostures. Some etymologists have sought to connect the word with Italian Cerretano, literally ‘inhabitant of Cerreto’, an Italian village supposedly noted for exaggeration, alleging that it may have contributed its suffix to ciarlatano and reinforced its meaning. However that may be, the word reached English in its current from via French charlatan.
clerk: clerk: [11] Clerk and its relatives cleric and clergy owe their existence ultimately to a Biblical reference, in Deuteronomy xviii 2, to the Levites, members of an Israelite tribe whose men were assistants to the Temple priests: ‘Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance’. Greek for ‘inheritance’ is klēros, and so it came about that matters relating to the Christian ministry were denoted in late Greek by the derived adjective klērikós.

This passed into ecclesiastical Latin as clēricus, which was originally borrowed into late Old English as cleric or clerc, later reinforced by Old French clerc to give modern English clerk. Its presentday bureaucratic connotations, which emerged in the 16th century, go back to an earlier time when members of the clergy were virtually the only people who could read or write.

However, religious associations have of course been preserved in cleric [17], from ecclesiastical Latin clēricus, and clergy [13], a blend of Old French clergie (a derivative of clerc) and clerge (from the ecclestiastical Latin derivative clēricātus). The compound clergyman is 16th century.
=> cleric, clergy
court: court: [12] Latin cohors designated an ‘enclosed yard’ (it was formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and an element hort- which also appears in English horticulture). By extension it came to stand for those assembled in such a yard – a crowd of attendants or company of soldiers; hence the meaning of cohort familiar today. But both in its original sense and as ‘retinue’ the word took another and rather more disguised path into English.

In late Latin the accusative form cohortem had already become cortem, and this passed into English via Old French cort and Anglo-Norman curt. It retains the underlying notion of ‘area enclosed by walls or buildings’ (now reinforced in the tautological compound courtyard [16]), but it seems that an early association of Old French cort with Latin curia ‘sovereign’s assembly’ and ‘legal tribunal’ has contributed two of the word’s commonest meanings in modern English.

The Italian version of the word is corte. From this was derived the verb corteggiare ‘attend court, pay honour’, which produced the noun corteggio, borrowed into English via French as cortège [17]. Other derivatives include courtesy [13], from Old French cortesie (of which curtsey [16] is a specialized use) and courtesan [16], via French courtisane from Italian cortigiana.
=> cohort, courtesy, curtsey, horticulture
dream: dream: [13] Old English had a word drēam, which meant ‘joy, merrymaking, music’, but it is not at all clear that this is the same word as modern English dream (the recorded Old English words for ‘dream’ were swefn and mǣting). Semantically, the two are quite a long way apart, and on balance it seems more likely that Old English had a homonym *drēam ‘dream’, which has not survived in the written records, and which was perhaps subsequently reinforced by Old Norse draumr.

Both these and the related German traum and Dutch droom have been traced back to an Indo-European base denoting ‘deception’, represented also in Sanskrit druh- ‘seek to harm’ and Avestan (a dialect of Old Iranian) druz- ‘lie, deceive’.
drift: drift: [13] Drift comes ultimately from the same Germanic base as produced drive, and etymologically means ‘driving or being driven’, but as far as we can tell it did not exist in Old English, and the word as we now have it is a borrowing from other Germanic languages. Its first recorded use is in the sense ‘snowdrift’, which points to Old Norse drift as the source, but later more general applications were probably reinforced by Dutch drift.
=> drive
edify: edify: [14] As its close relative edifice [14] suggests, edify has to do literally with ‘building’. And in fact its underlying etymological sense is ‘building a hearth’. That was the original sense of Latin aedis. Gradually, though, it was extended, in a familiar metaphorical transition, from ‘hearth’ to ‘home’ and ‘dwelling’. Addition of a verbal element related to facere ‘make’ produced aedificāre ‘build a house’, or simply ‘build’.

Its figurative application to ‘instruction’ or ‘enlightenment’ took place in Latin, and has no doubt been reinforced in English (which acquired the word from Old French edifier) by its accidental similarity to educate.
flail: flail: [OE] Flail is a distant relative of flagellation [15]. Both go back ultimately to Latin flagrum ‘whip’. This had a diminutive form flagellum, which in prehistoric times was borrowed into West Germanic as *flagil-. It is assumed that Old English inherited it as *flegil (although this is not actually recorded), which, reinforced in Middle English times by the related Old French flaiel, produced modern English flail. Flagellation comes from the derived Latin verb flagellāre ‘whip’.
=> flagellation
mistake: mistake: [13] Mistake originally meant literally ‘take in error, take the wrong thing’. It was borrowed from Old Norse mistaka, a compound verb formed from the prefix mis- ‘wrongly’ and taka ‘take’. This sense survived in English for some time (‘to be ever busy, and mistake away the bottles and cans … before they be but half drunk of’, Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair 1614), but gradually through the late Middle English period the notion of ‘error’ came to the fore (it was already present in the Old Norse verb, which was used reflexively for ‘go wrong’, and was probably reinforced by Old French mesprendre, literally ‘take wrongly’, which was also used for ‘err’).

The noun use, ‘error’, emerged in the 17th century.
=> take
muscle: muscle: [16] Ultimately, muscle and mussel [OE] are the same word, and both owe their origin to a supposed resemblance to a mouse. They go back to Latin mūsculus, literally ‘little mouse’, a diminutive form of mūs ‘mouse’, which was applied to the shellfish because of a similarity in shape and colour, and to ‘muscle’ because the shape and movement of certain muscles beneath the skin, such as the biceps, reminded people of a mouse.

Latin mūsculus ‘mussel’ was borrowed into Old English as muscle or muxle; the -ssspelling began to emerge in the 15th century, inspired by Middle Low German mussel (which came from *muscula, a Vulgar Latin feminization of Latin mūsculus and source of French moule ‘mussel’) and reinforced in the 16th century by the introduction via Old French of muscle for ‘muscle’.

The notion of resemblance to a mouse also lies behind English musk.
=> mouse, mussel
nun: nun: [OE] In medieval Latin, nunnus and nunna were titles of respect accorded respectively to old men and old women in general. In due course they came to be applied specifically to ‘monks’ and ‘nuns’. The masculine form has since disappeared, but the feminine nonna was borrowed into Old English as nunne. This was subsequently reinforced in the 13th century by Old French nonne.
OK: OK: [19] Few English expressions have had so many weird and wonderful explanations offered for their origin as OK. There is still some doubt about it, but the theory now most widely accepted is that the letters stand for oll korrect, a facetious early 19th-century American phonetic spelling of all correct; and that this was reinforced by the fact that they were also coincidentally the initial letters of Old Kinderhook, the nickname of US president Martin Van Buren (who was born in Kinderhook, in New York State), which were used as a slogan in the presidential election of 1840 (a year after the first record of OK in print).
party: party: [13] The Latin verb partīrī ‘divide up’ was derived from pars ‘part’ (source of English part). The feminine form of its past participle, partīta, was used in Vulgar Latin as a noun meaning ‘part, side’, and passed into English via Old French partie. This was later reinforced by Old French parti, which came from the Vulgar Latin neuter form *partītum and contributed the English word’s more salient current senses ‘political group’ and (in the 18th century) ‘social gathering’.

Other contributions made to English by the Latin past participle are the element -partite of words like bipartite, tripartite, etc and (via Italian) the musical term partita [19].
=> part
quantity: quantity: [14] Latin quantus meant ‘how much’ (it was a compound adjective formed from quī ‘who’). From it was derived the noun quantitās ‘extent, amount’, which passed into English via Old French quantite. Quantum [17], a noun use of the neuter form of the Latin adjective, originally denoted simply ‘amount’; its specific application to a ‘minimum amount of matter’ was introduced by Max Planck in 1900, and reinforced by Einstein in 1905.
=> quantum
spend: spend: [OE] Spend is a blend of verbs from two distinct sources, but both going back ultimately to Latin pendere ‘weigh, pay’. The earlier was Latin expendere ‘pay out’ (later to give English expend [15]), which Old English took over as spendan. (It was also the source of German spenden.) This was later reinforced by dispend, a borrowing from Old French despendre which now survives only in dispense.
=> dispense, expend, pendant, pendulum
strop: strop: [OE] Strop has now narrowed down in meaning to the specialized ‘strip of leather for sharpening a razor’, but it used to be a much more general term for a leather band or loop. It goes back to a prehistoric West Germanic word that was probably an adoption of Latin stroppus ‘strap, band’. That in turn may well have come from Greek strophos ‘twisted band’, from strephein ‘turn’.

Old French had estrope from the same West Germanic source, and that probably reinforced the English word in the 14th century. Scottish pronunciation turned strop into strap [17], and that has now inherited most of the general functions of strop in English at large. As for stroppy ‘bad-tempered and uncooperative’, first recorded in 1951, no convincing link with strop ‘leather strip’ has ever been established (strop ‘fit of stroppiness’ is a back-formation from stroppy).

One suggestion is that it may be a radically stripped-down version of obstreperous.
turn: turn: [OE] The ultimate source of turn is Greek tórnos ‘lathe’, which was probably related to Latin terere ‘rub’ (source of English attrition, detritus, trite, etc). Latin took this over as tornus and formed a verb from it, tornāre ‘turn on a lathe’, hence ‘round off, make smooth’. Old English borrowed tornāre as turnian, which was later reinforced by Old French turner. To the same word family belong tour and tournament.
=> attrition, detriment, detritus, tour, tournament, trite
boondocks (n.): 1910s, from Tagalog bundok "mountain." Adopted by occupying American soldiers in the Philippines for "remote and wild place." Reinforced or re-adopted during World War II. Hence, also boondockers "shoes suited for rough terrain," originally (1944) U.S. services slang word for field boots.
booze (n.): by 1821, perhaps 1714; probably originally as a verb, "to drink a lot" (1768), variant of Middle English bouse (c. 1300), from Middle Dutch busen "to drink heavily," related to Middle High German bus (intransitive) "to swell, inflate," of unknown origin. The noun reinforced by name of Philadelphia distiller E.G. Booz. Johnson's dictionary has rambooze "A drink made of wine, ale, eggs and sugar in winter time; or of wine, milk, sugar and rose-water in the summer time." In New Zealand from c.World War II, a drinking binge was a boozeroo.
bucket (n.): mid-13c., from Anglo-French buquet "bucket, pail," from Old French buquet "bucket," which is from Frankish or some other Germanic source, or a diminutive of cognate Old English buc "pitcher, bulging vessel," originally "belly" (buckets were formerly of leather as well as wood), both from West Germanic *buh- (cognates: Dutch buik, Old High German buh, German Bauch "belly"), possibly from a variant of PIE root *beu-, *bheu- "to grow, swell" (see bull (n.2)).

Kick the bucket "to die" (1785) perhaps is from unrelated Old French buquet "balance," a beam from which slaughtered animals were hung; perhaps reinforced by the notion of suicide by hanging after standing on an upturned bucket (but Farmer calls attention to bucket "a Norfolk term for a pulley").
capon (n.): "a castrated cock," late Old English capun, from Latin caponem (nominative capo) "castrated cock" (also source of French chapon, Spanish capon, Italian cappone), perhaps literally "to strike off," from PIE root *(s)kep- "to cut" (see hatchet (n.)). Probably reinforced in Middle English by cognate Old North French capon.
common (adj.): c. 1300, "belonging to all, general," from Old French comun "common, general, free, open, public" (9c., Modern French commun), from Latin communis "in common, public, shared by all or many; general, not specific; familiar, not pretentious," from PIE *ko-moin-i- "held in common," compound adjective formed from *ko- "together" + *moi-n-, suffixed form of root *mei- (1) "change, exchange" (see mutable), hence literally "shared by all."

Second element of the compound also is the source of Latin munia "duties, public duties, functions," those related to munia "office." Perhaps reinforced in Old French by the Germanic form of PIE *ko-moin-i- (compare Old English gemæne "common, public, general, universal;" see mean (adj.)), which came to French via Frankish.

Used disparagingly of women and criminals since c. 1300. Common pleas is 13c., from Anglo-French communs plets, hearing civil actions by one subject against another as opposed to pleas of the crown. Common prayer is contrasted with private prayer. Common stock is attested from 1888.
conk (v.): as in conk out, 1918, coined by World War I airmen, perhaps in imitation of the sound of a stalling motor, reinforced by conk (v.) "hit on the head," originally "punch in the nose" (1821), from conk (n.), slang for "nose" (1812), perhaps from fancied resemblance to a conch (pronounced "conk") shell.
coomb (n.): also combe, "deep hollow or valley, especially on flank of a hill," mainly surviving in place names, from Old English cumb, probably a British word, from Celtic base *kumbos (compare Welsh cwm in same sense). Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names says, "This is usually taken to be a Celtic loan ... but there was also OE cumb 'vessel, cup, bowl,'" which was "probably used in a transferred topographical sense reinforced in western districts by cwm."
crumb (n.): Old English cruma "crumb, fragment," from a West Germanic root of obscure origin (compare Middle Dutch crume, Dutch kruim, German krume). The -b- appeared mid-15c., in part by analogy with words like dumb, in part perhaps reinforced by crumble. Slang meaning "lousy person" is 1918, from crumb, U.S. slang for "body-louse" (1863), so called from resemblance.
doozy: also doozie, 1903 (adj.), 1916 (n.), perhaps an alteration of daisy, or from popular Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1859-1924). In either case, reinforced by Duesenberg, the expensive, classy make of automobile from the 1920s-30s.
English (n.1): "the people of England; the speech of England," noun use of Old English adjective Englisc (contrasted to Denisc, Frencisce, etc.), "of or pertaining to the Angles," from Engle (plural) "the Angles," the name of one of the Germanic groups that overran the island 5c., supposedly so-called because Angul, the land they inhabited on the Jutland coast, was shaped like a fish hook (see angle (n.)). Reinforced by Anglo-French engleis. Cognates: Dutch Engelsch, German Englisch, Danish Engelsk, French Anglais (Old French Engelsche), Spanish Inglés, Italian Inglese.

Englisc was used from earliest times without distinction for all the Germanic invaders -- Angles, Saxon, Jutes (Bede's gens Anglorum) -- and applied to their group of related languages by Alfred the Great. "The name English for the language is thus older than the name England for the country" [OED]. After 1066, of the native population of England (as distinguished from Normans and French occupiers), a distinction which lasted about a generation. But as late as Robert of Gloucester's "Chronicle" (c. 1300) it also was sometimes distinguished from "Saxon" ("Þe englisse in þe norþ half, þe saxons bi souþe").
"... when Scots & others are likely to be within earshot, Britain & British should be inserted as tokens, but no more, of what is really meant" [Fowler]
In pronunciation, "En-" has become "In-," perhaps through the frequency of -ing- words and the relative rarity of -e- before -ng- in the modern language, but the older spelling has remained. Meaning "English language or literature as a subject at school" is from 1889. Old English meaning the Anglo-Saxon language before the Conquest is attested from c. 1200 in an account of the native (as opposed to Latin) month names.
faggot (n.2): "male homosexual," 1914, American English slang, probably from earlier contemptuous term for "woman" (1590s), especially an old and unpleasant one, in reference to faggot (n.1) "bundle of sticks," as something awkward that has to be carried (compare baggage "worthless woman," 1590s). It may also be reinforced by Yiddish faygele "homosexual" (n.), literally "little bird." It also may have roots in British public school slang noun fag "a junior who does certain duties for a senior" (1785), with suggestions of "catamite," from fag (v.). This also spun off a verb (see fag (v.2).
He [the prefect] used to fag me to blow the chapel organ for him. ["Boy's Own Paper," 1889]
Other obsolete British senses of faggot were "man hired into military service merely to fill out the ranks at muster" (1700) and "vote manufactured for party purposes" (1817).

The explanation that male homosexuals were called faggots because they were burned at the stake as punishment is an etymological urban legend. Burning sometimes was a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorrah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method prescribed. Use of faggot in connection with public executions had long been obscure English historical trivia by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (in common with the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use early 20c., by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others.
father (n.): Old English fæder "he who begets a child, nearest male ancestor;" also "any lineal male ancestor; the Supreme Being," and by late Old English, "one who exercises parental care over another," from Proto-Germanic *fader (cognates: Old Saxon fadar, Old Frisian feder, Dutch vader, Old Norse faðir, Old High German fatar, German vater; in Gothic usually expressed by atta), from PIE *pəter- "father" (cognates: Sanskrit pitar-, Greek pater, Latin pater, Old Persian pita, Old Irish athir "father"), presumably from baby-speak sound "pa." The ending formerly was regarded as an agent-noun affix.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

[Wordsworth, 1802]
The classic example of Grimm's Law, where PIE "p-" becomes Germanic "f-." Spelling with -th- (15c.) reflects widespread phonetic shift in Middle English that turned -der to -ther in many words, perhaps reinforced in this case by Old Norse forms; spelling caught up to pronunciation in 1500s (compare mother (n.), weather (n.)). As a title of various Church dignitaries from c. 1300; meaning "creator, inventor, author" is from mid-14c.; that of "anything that gives rise to something else" is from late 14c. As a respectful title for an older man, recorded from 1550s. Father-figure is from 1954. Fathers "leading men, elders" is from 1580s.
fie (interj.): late 13c., possibly from Old French fi, exclamation of disapproval (12c.), and reinforced by Old Norse fy or some other Scandinavian form; it's a general sound of disgust that seems to have developed independently in many languages. Fie-fie was a 19c. British jocular word for "improper," also, as a noun, "woman of tarnished reputation" [OED].
fudge (v.): "put together clumsily or dishonestly," by 1771 (perhaps from 17c.); perhaps an alteration of fadge "make suit, fit" (1570s), a verb of unknown origin. The verb fudge later had an especial association with sailors and log books. The traditional story of the origin of the interjection fudge "lies! nonsense!" (1766; see fudge (n.2)) traces it to a sailor's retort to anything considered lies or nonsense, from Captain Fudge, "who always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies" [Isaac Disraeli, 1791, citing a pamphlet from 1700]. It seems there really was a late 17c. Captain Fudge, called "Lying Fudge," and perhaps his name reinforced this form of fadge in the sense of "contrive without the necessary materials." The surname is from Fuche, a pet form of the masc. proper name Fulcher, from Germanic and meaning literally "people-army."
glaze (v.): late 14c. variant of Middle English glasen "to fit with glass," also "to make shine," from glas (see glass (n.)). The form probably influenced or reinforced by glazier. Of pottery, etc., "cover with a shiny or glossy substance," from c. 1400. Related: Glazed; glazing.
go south (v.): "vanish, abscond," 1920s, American English, probably from mid-19c. notion of disappearing south to Mexico or Texas to escape pursuit or responsibility, reinforced by Native American belief (attested in colonial writing mid-18c.) that the soul journeys south after death.
good (adj.): Old English god (with a long "o") "excellent, fine; valuable; desirable, favorable, beneficial; full, entire, complete;" of abstractions, actions, etc., "beneficial, effective; righteous, pious;" of persons or souls, "righteous, pious, virtuous;" probably originally "having the right or desirable quality," from Proto-Germanic *godaz "fitting, suitable" (cognates: Old Norse goðr, Dutch goed, Old High German guot, German gut, Gothic goþs), originally "fit, adequate, belonging together," from PIE root *ghedh- "to unite, be associated, suitable" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic godu "pleasing time," Russian godnyi "fit, suitable," Old English gædrian "to gather, to take up together").

Irregular comparative and superlative (better, best) reflect a widespread pattern in words for "good," as in Latin bonus, melior, optimus.

Sense of "kind, benevolent" is from late Old English in reference to persons or God, from mid-14c. of actions. That of "friendly, gracious" is from c. 1200. Meaning "fortunate, prosperous, favorable" was in late Old English. As an expression of satisfaction, from early 15c. Of persons, "skilled (at a profession or occupation), expert," in late Old English, now typically with at; in Middle English with of or to. Of children, "well-behaved," by 1690s. Of money, "not debased, standard as to value," from late 14c. From c. 1200 of numbers or quantities, "large, great," of time or distance, "long;" good while "a considerable time" is from c. 1300; good way "a great distance" is mid-15c.
Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing. ["As You Like It"]
As good as "practically, virtually" is from mid-14c.; to be good for "beneficial to" is from late 14c. To make good "repay (costs, expenses), atone for (a sin or an offense)" is from late 14c. To have a good mind "have an earnest desire" (to do something) is from c. 1500. Good deed, good works were in Old English as "an act of piety;" good deed specifically as "act of service to others" was reinforced early 20c. by Boy Scouting. Good turn is from c. 1400. Good sport, of persons, is from 1906. The good book "the Bible" attested from 1801, originally in missionary literature describing the language of conversion efforts in American Indian tribes. Good to go is attested from 1989.
grab (v.): "seize forcibly or roughly," 1580s, from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German grabben "to grab," from Proto-Germanic *grab-, *grap- (cognates: Old English græppian "to seize," Old Saxon garva, Old High German garba "sheaf," literally "that which is gathered up together"), from PIE *ghrebh- (1) "to seize, reach" (cognates: Sanskrit grbhnati "seizes," Old Persian grab- "seize" as possession or prisoner, Old Church Slavonic grabiti "to seize, rob," Lithuanian grebiu "to rake"). Sense of "to get by unscrupulous methods" was reinforced by grab game, a kind of swindle, attested from 1846. Related: Grabbed; grabbing.
haggard (adj.): 1560s, "wild, unruly" (originally in reference to hawks), from Middle French haggard, probably from Old French faulcon hagard "wild falcon," literally "falcon of the woods," from hagard, hagart, from Middle High German hag "hedge, copse, wood," from Proto-Germanic *hagon, from PIE root *kagh- "to catch, seize;" also "wickerwork, fence" (see hedge (n.)). OED, however, finds this derivation "very doubtful." Sense perhaps reinforced by Low German hager "gaunt, haggard." Sense of "with a haunted and wild expression" first recorded 1690s; that of "careworn" first recorded 1853. Sense influenced by association with hag. Related: Haggardly; haggardness.
harlot (n.): c. 1200 (late 12c. in surnames), "vagabond, man of no fixed occupation, idle rogue," from Old French herlot, arlot "vagabond, tramp, vagrant; rascal, scoundrel," with cognates in Old Provençal (arlot), Old Spanish (arlote), and Italian (arlotto), but of unknown origin. Usually male in Middle English and Old French. Used in positive as well as pejorative senses by Chaucer; applied in Middle English to jesters, buffoons, jugglers, later to actors. Secondary sense of "prostitute, unchaste woman" probably had developed by 14c., certainly by early 15c., but this was reinforced by its use euphemistically for "strumpet, whore" in 16c. English translations of the Bible. The word may be Germanic, with an original sense of "camp follower," if the first element is hari "army," as some suspect.
haunt (v.): early 13c., "to practice habitually, busy oneself with, take part in," from Old French hanter "to frequent, resort to, be familiar with" (12c.), probably from Old Norse heimta "bring home," from Proto-Germanic *haimatjanan "to go or bring home," from *haimaz- "home" (see home (n.)). Meaning "to frequent (a place)" is c. 1300 in English. Use in reference to a spirit returning to the house where it had lived perhaps was in Proto-Germanic, but it was reinforced by Shakespeare's plays, and it is first recorded 1590 in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
lay (v.): Old English lecgan "to place on the ground (or other surface)," also "put down (often by striking)," from Proto-Germanic *lagjan (cognates: Old Saxon leggian, Old Norse leggja, Old Frisian ledza, Middle Dutch legghan, Dutch leggen, Old High German lecken, German legen, Gothic lagjan "to lay, put, place"), causative of lie (v.2). As a noun, from 1550s, "act of laying." Meaning "way in which something is laid" (as in lay of the land) first recorded 1819.

Meaning "have sex with" first recorded 1934, in U.S. slang, probably from sense of "deposit" (which was in Old English, as in lay an egg, lay a bet, etc.), perhaps reinforced by to lie with, a phrase frequently met in the Bible. The noun meaning "woman available for sexual intercourse" is attested from 1930, but there are suggestions of it in stage puns from as far back as 1767. To lay for (someone) "await a chance at revenge" is from late 15c.; lay low "stay inconspicuous" is from 1839. To lay (someone) low preserves the secondary Old English sense.
mantle (n.): Old English mentel "loose, sleeveless cloak," from Latin mantellum "cloak" (source of Italian mantello, Old High German mantal, German Mantel, Old Norse mötull), perhaps from a Celtic source. Reinforced and altered 12c. by cognate Old French mantel "cloak, mantle; bedspread, cover" (Modern French manteau), also from the Latin source. Figurative sense "that which enshrouds" is from c. 1300. Allusive use for "symbol of literary authority or artistic pre-eminence" is from Elijah's mantle [2 Kings ii:13]. As a layer of the earth between the crust and core (though not originally distinguished from the core) it is attested from 1940.
nab (v.): "to catch (someone)," 1680s, probably a variant of dialectal nap "to seize, catch, lay hold of" (1670s, now surviving only in kidnap), which possibly is from Scandinavian (compare Norwegian nappe, Swedish nappa "to catch, snatch;" Danish nappe "to pinch, pull"); reinforced by Middle English napand "grasping, greedy." Related: Nabbed; nabbing. Nabbing-cull was old slang for "constable," and Farmer & Henley has "TO NAB THE STIFLES = to be hanged."
nasty (adj.): c. 1400, "foul, filthy, dirty, unclean," of unknown origin; perhaps [Barnhart] from Old French nastre "miserly, envious, malicious, spiteful," shortened form of villenastre "infamous, bad," from vilein "villain" + -astre, pejorative suffix, from Latin -aster.

Alternative etymology [OED] is from Dutch nestig "dirty," literally "like a bird's nest." Likely reinforced in either case by a Scandinavian source (compare Swedish dialectal naskug "dirty, nasty"), which also might be the source of the Middle English word. Of weather, from 1630s; of things generally, "unpleasant, offensive," from 1705. Of people, "ill-tempered," from 1825. Noun meaning "something nasty" is from 1935. Related: Nastily; nastiness.
nip (n.1): "small measure of spirits," 1796, shortening of nipperkin (1670s) "quantity of liquor of a half pint or less," possibly of Dutch or Low German origin (compare German Nipp "sip, taste") and related to nip (v.). Reinforced by nip (n.2) on notion of "fragment or bit pinched off" (c. 1600).
offer (v.): Old English ofrian "to offer, show, exhibit, sacrifice, bring an oblation," from Latin offerre "to present, bestow, bring before" (in Late Latin "to present in worship"), from ob "to" (see ob-) + ferre "to bring, to carry" (see infer). The Latin word was borrowed elsewhere in Germanic: Old Frisian offria, Middle Dutch offeren, Old Norse offra. Non-religious sense reinforced by Old French offrir "to offer," from Latin offerre. Related: Offered; offering.
plant (v.): "put in the ground to grow," Old English plantian, from Latin plantare (see plant (n.)). Reinforced by cognate Old French planter. Without reference to growing, "to insert firmly," late 14c. Of colonies from c. 1300. Figuratively, of ideas, etc., from early 15c. Meaning "to bury" is U.S. slang from U.S., 1855. Related: Planted; planting.
Plimsoll (n.): "mark on the hull of a British ship showing how deeply she may be loaded," 1881, from Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898), M.P. for Derby and advocate of shipping reforms (which were embodied in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876). Sense extended 1907 to "rubber-soled canvas shoe" (equivalent of American English sneakers) because the band around the shoes that holds the two parts together reminded people of a ship's Plimsoll line; sense perhaps reinforced by sound association with sole (which sometimes influenced the spelling to plimsole). The name is of Huguenot origin.
port (n.1): "harbor," Old English port "harbor, haven," reinforced by Old French port "harbor, port; mountain pass;" Old English and Old French words both from Latin portus "port, harbor," originally "entrance, passage," figuratively "place of refuge, asylum," from PIE *prtu- "a going, a passage," from root *per- (2) "to lead, pass over" (cognates: Sanskrit parayati "carries over;" Greek poros "journey, passage, way," peirein "to pierce, run through;" Latin porta "gate, door," portare "passage," peritus "experienced;" Avestan peretush "passage, ford, bridge;" Armenian hordan "go forward;" Welsh rhyd "ford;" Old Church Slavonic pariti "to fly;" Old English faran "to go, journey," Old Norse fjörðr "inlet, estuary").

Meaning "left side of a ship" (looking forward from the stern) is attested from 1540s, from notion of "the side facing the harbor" (when a ship is docked). It replaced larboard in common usage to avoid confusion with starboard; officially so by Admiralty order of 1844 and U.S. Navy Department notice of 1846. Figurative sense "place of refuge" is attested from early 15c.; phrase any port in a storm first recorded 1749. A port of call (1810) is one paid a scheduled visit by a ship.
portage (n.): early 15c., "action of carrying," said to be from Old French portage, Medieval Latin portaticum, though the meaning of these was "tax paid on entering a town," from Latin portare "to carry" (see port (n.1)). Sense of "carrying of boats from one navigable water to another" is from 1690s, reinforced in Canadian French.
potter (n.): "maker of pots" (they also sometimes doubled as bell-founders), late Old English pottere "potter," reinforced by Old French potier "potter," both from the root of pot (n.1). As a surname from late 12c. Potter's field (1520s) is Biblical, a ground where clay suitable for pottery was dug, later purchased by high priests of Jerusalem as a burying ground for strangers, criminals, and the poor (Matt. xxvii:7). An older Old English word for "potter" was crocwyrhta "crock-wright."