英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

aesthetic [aesthetic 词源字典]: aesthetic: [18] In strict etymological terms, aesthetic relates to perception via the senses. It comes ultimately from the Greek verb aísthesthai ‘perceive’ (which is related to Latin audīre ‘hear’), and this meaning is preserved in anaesthetic, literally ‘without feeling’. The derived adjective aisthētikós reached Western Europe via modern Latin aesthēticus, and was first used (in its Germanized form ästhetisch) in the writings of the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804).

Here, it retained its original sense, ‘perceptual’, but its use by A T Baumgarten as the title (Æsthetica) of a work on the theory of beauty in art (1750) soon led to its adoption in its now generally accepted meaning.
=> audible, audition[aesthetic etymology, aesthetic origin, 英语词源]
alcohol: alcohol: [16] Originally, alcohol was a powder, not a liquid. The word comes from Arabic alkuhul, literally ‘the kohl’ – that is, powdered antimony used as a cosmetic for darkening the eyelids. This was borrowed into English via French or medieval Latin, and retained this ‘powder’ meaning for some centuries (for instance, ‘They put between the eyelids and the eye a certain black powder made of a mineral brought from the kingdom of Fez, and called Alcohol’, George Sandys, Travels 1615).

But a change was rapidly taking place: from specifically ‘antimony’, alcohol came to mean any substance obtained by sublimation, and hence ‘quintessence’. Alcohol of wine was thus the ‘quintessence of wine’, produced by distillation or rectification, and by the middle of the 18th century alcohol was being used on its own for the intoxicating ingredient in strong liquor.

The more precise chemical definition (a compound with a hydroxyl group bound to a hydrocarbon group) developed in the 19th century.
=> kohl
assassin: assassin: [17] Etymologically, an assassin is an ‘eater or smoker of hashish’, the drug cannabis. In the Middle Ages, in the area of the Middle East and modern Iran, there was a sect of fanatical Ismaili Muslims, founded in the late 11th century by Hassan ibn Sabbah. Its members killed the sect’s opponents under the influence of cannabis. Hence the hashshāshīn (plural of hashshāsh, Arabic for ‘hashish-eater’) came to have a reputation as murderers. In English the Arabic plural form was perceived as singular. The word has retained its connotation of one who kills for political or religious rather than personal motives.
=> hashish
aubergine: aubergine: [18] Etymologically, the aubergine is the ‘anti-fart vegetable’. That was the meaning of its ultimate source, Sanskrit vātinganah, so named because it did not produce intestinal gas. This was borrowed into Persian as bādingān, and reached Arabic as (with the definite article al) al-bādindjān. It then made its way with the Moors into the Iberian peninsula: here it produced Portuguese beringela (source of brinjal [18], an Indian and African English term for ‘aubergine’) and, with the definite article retained, Catalan alberginia.

French turned this into aubergine and passed it on to English. In British English it has gradually replaced the earlier eggplant, named after the vegetable’s shape, which American English has retained.
bain-marie: bain-marie: [19] In its origins, the bain-marie was far from today’s innocuous domestic utensil for heating food over boiling water. It takes its name from Mary, or Miriam, the sister of Moses, who according to medieval legend was an adept alchemist – so much so that she had a piece of alchemical equipment named after her, ‘Mary’s furnace’ (medieval Greek kaminos Marias). This was mistranslated into medieval Latin as balneum Mariae ‘Mary’s bath’, from which it passed into French as bain-marie.

English originally borrowed the word in the 15th century, in semi-anglicized form, as balneo of Mary. At this time it still retained its original alchemical meaning, but by the early 19th century, when English adopted the French term, it had developed its present-day use.
benzene: benzene: [19] The original name given to this hydrocarbon, by the German chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich in 1833, was benzine. He based it on the term benzoic acid, a derivative of benzoin, the name of a resinous substance exuded by trees of the genus Styrax. This came ultimately from Arabic lubān-jāwī, literally ‘frankincense of Java’ (the trees grow in Southeast Asia).

When the expression was borrowed into the Romance languages, the initial lu- was apprehended as the definite article, and dropped (ironically, since in so many Arabic words which do contain the article al, it has been retained as part and parcel of the word – see ALGEBRA). This produced a variety of forms, including French benjoin, Portuguese beijoim, and Italian benzoi.

English probably acquired the word mainly from French (a supposition supported by the folketymological alteration benjamin which was in common use in English from the end of the 16th century), but took the z from the Italian form. Meanwhile, back with benzine, in the following year, 1834, the German chemist Justus von Liebig proposed the alternative name benzol; and finally, in the 1870s, the chemist A W Hofmann regularized the form to currently accepted chemical nomenclature as benzene.
=> benzol
blind: blind: [OE] The connotations of the ultimate ancestor of blind, Indo-European *bhlendhos, seem to have been not so much ‘sightlessness’ as ‘confusion’ and ‘obscurity’. The notion of someone wandering around in actual or mental darkness, not knowing where to go, naturally progressed to the ‘inability to see’. Related words that fit this pattern are blunder, possibly from Old Norse blunda ‘shut one’s eyes’, blunt, and maybe also blend.

By the time the word entered Old English, as blind, it already meant ‘sightless’, but ancestral associations of darkness and obscurity were retained (Pepys in his diary, for instance, writes of a ‘little blind [that is, dark] bed-chamber’ 1666), and traces of them remain in such usages as ‘blind entrance’.
=> blend, blunder, blunt
bold: bold: [OE] In Old English, bold meant simply ‘brave’; the modern connotations of immodesty or presumptuousness do not seem to have developed until the 12th century. The word goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *balthaz, based ultimately, it has been speculated, on Indo- European *bhel- ‘swell’ (the psychological link through ‘being puffed up’ via ‘adventurous courage’ to ‘audacity’ is scarcely far-fetched). If this is so it would mean bold is related to bellows, belly, billow, bolster, and possibly bellow and bell. The notion of impetuosity is perhaps retained in the related German bald ‘soon’.
=> bell, bellows, belly, billow, bolster
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
comma: comma: [16] Greek kómma meant literally ‘piece cut off, segment’. It derived from the verb kóptein ‘cut’, relatives of which include Russian kopje ‘lance’, source of the coin-name kopeck, and probably English capon. Kómma came to be applied metaphorically, as a technical term in prosody, to a small piece of a sentence, a ‘short clause’, a sense which it retained when it reached English via Latin comma. It was not long before, like colon, it was applied to the punctuation mark signifying the end of such a clause.
=> capon, kopeck
convent: convent: [13] Latin conventus meant ‘assembly’ (it was the past participle of convenire ‘come together’, source of English convenient), but as it passed via Anglo-Norman covent into English it acquired the specialized sense ‘religious community’ (in early use it was applied to communities of either sex, but since the end of the 18th century it has come to be used exclusively for a ‘house of nuns’).

Until the mid- 15th century the Anglo-Norman spelling covent was retained in English (it survives in Covent Garden, which was formerly a vegetable garden belonging to the monks of Westminster Abbey, and may also the the source of coven [16]).
=> convenient, coven, venue
cord: cord: [13] Cord ‘string’ and chord ‘straight line’ were originally the same word. They go back to Greek khordé ‘string’, which came into English via Latin chorda and Old French corde. In English it was originally written cord, a spelling which included the sense ‘string of a musical instrument’. But in the 16th century the spelling of this latter sense was remodelled to chord, on the basis of Latin chorda, and it has been retained for its semantic descendants ‘straight line joining two points on a curve’ and ‘straight line joining the front and rear edges of a wing’. (Chord ‘combination of musical notes’ [15] is no relation: it is a reduced version of accord, which comes via Old French acorder from Vulgar Latin *accordāre, a compound verb based on Latin cors ‘heart’, and ironically was originally spelled cord.) Related words include cordon [16], from the French diminutive form cordon, and cordite [19], so named from its often being shaped into cords resembling brown twine.
=> chord, cordite, cordon, yarn
demesne: demesne: [14] Ultimately, demesne is the same word as domain. It comes via Old French demeine from Latin dominicus, an adjective meaning ‘of a lord’ (see DOMINION), and hence etymologically means ‘land belonging to a lord’. Under the feudal system it denoted land retained by the lord for his own use, rather than let out to tenants. The -s- was inserted into the word in Anglo-Norman, partly as a graphic device to indicate a long vowel and partly through association with Old French mesnie ‘household’, which came ultimately from Latin mansio ‘place to stay’ (source of English mansion).
=> dame, danger, domain, dominion
detest: detest: [16] Latin dētestārī, source of detest, meant ‘denounce’. It was a compound verb formed from the pejorative prefix dē- and testārī ‘bear witness’. This in turn was a derivative of testis ‘witness’, source of English testify, testimony, and testicle. It retained its original sense of ‘cursing’ or ‘execration’ when first borrowed into English, but by the 18th century this had weakened from open denunciation to internal ‘loathing’.
=> testicle, testify, testimony
display: display: [14] Display originally meant ‘unfold’, and it is related not to modern English play but to ply. It comes via Old French despleier (whose modern French descendant, déployer, is the source of English deploy [18]) from Latin displicāre. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘un-’ and plicāre ‘fold’ (source of or related to English accomplish, complicated, ply, and simple), and in classical Latin seems only to have had the metaphorical meaning ‘scatter’.

In medieval Latin, however, it returned to its underlying literal sense ‘unfold’, which was originally retained in English, particularly with reference to sails or flags. The notion of ‘spreading out’ is retained in splay, which was formed by lopping off the first syllable of display in the 14th century.
=> accomplish, complicate, deploy, ply, simple
dungeon: dungeon: [14] In common with a wide range of other English words, including danger, demesne, dominion, domino, and don, dungeon comes ultimately from Latin dominus ‘lord, master’. Derived from this was dominium ‘property’ (source of English dominion), which in postclassical times became dominiō or domniō, meaning ‘lord’s tower’.

In Old French this became donjon, the term for a ‘castle keep’, and eventually, by extension, a ‘secure (underground) cell’. English acquired the package in the 14th century, but in common usage has retained only the latter sense, in the adapted Middle English spelling (although the original Old French form remains in use as a technical term for a ‘castle keep’).
=> dame, danger, demesne, dominion, dominate
eager: eager: [13] As its close etymological connection with vinegar and acid might suggest, the underlying sense of eager is ‘sharp’. It comes ultimately from the Indo-European base *ak- ‘sharp, pointed’, amongst whose other English descendants are acne, edge, and oxygen. It was the source of Latin ācer ‘keen, sharp’, which was used in relation both to sight, hearing, etc, and to temperamental qualities – hence ‘ardent, zealous’.

The Latin adjective (from which English also gets acid and acrid) became *acrum in post-classical times, and from this came Old French aigre (source of the -egar of vinegar), which passed into English via Anglo- Norman egre. English retained the literal senses ‘pungent, sour’ and ‘sharp-edged’ until the early 19th century.
=> acid, acne, acrid, acute, edge, oxygen
employ: employ: [15] Essentially, employ is the same word as imply [14] and implicate [16]. All three come ultimately from Latin implicāre ‘enfold, involve’, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- ‘in’ and plicāre ‘fold’ (source of English ply and related to English fold). This passed into Old French as emplier, which in turn was transmitted into English as imply; this originally retained the literal sense ‘enfold’, and it was only gradually that the metaphorical ‘involve as a necessary condition’ developed.

However, Old French emplier had a variant empleier, later emploier, which took a slightly different semantic route – from simply ‘involve’ to ‘involve in or apply to a particular purpose’. This was the sense in which English acquired it as employ.
=> fold, implicate, imply, ply
encyclopedia: encyclopedia: [16] Etymologically, encyclopedia means ‘general education’. It is a medieval formation, based on the Greek phrase egkúklios paideíā (egkúklios, a compound adjective formed from the prefix en- ‘in’ and kúklos ‘circle’ – source of English cycle – meant originally ‘circular’, and hence ‘general’, and is the ultimate source of English encyclical [17]; paideíā ‘education’ was a derivative of país ‘boy, child’, which has given English paederast [18], paedophilia [20], pedagogue [14], pedant [16], and paediatrician [20]).

This referred to the general course of education which it was customary to give a child in classical Greece, and after it was merged into a single word egkuklopaideíā and transmitted via medieval Latin encyclopedia into English, it retained that meaning at first. However, in the 17th century the term began to be applied to compendious reference works (the first, or at least the one which did most to establish the name, was perhaps that of J H Alsted in 1632).

The Encyclopedia Britannica was first published in 1768.
=> cycle, encyclical, paederast, pedagogue, pedant, pediatrician
entice: entice: [13] Entice is an inflammatory sort of word. It comes ultimately from Latin tītiō ‘firebrand’, which was used, with the prefix in- ‘in’, to form the Vulgar Latin verb *intītiāre ‘set on fire’. This passed into English via Old French enticier, and originally retained much of the heat and vigour of its origins: ‘Your master is enticed and provoked by the Duke of Burgundy’, Richard Grafton, Chronicles of the Affairs of England 1568; but by the 17th century the process of softening from ‘incitement’ to ‘allurement’ was all but complete.
esplanade: esplanade: [17] Essentially, esplanade is the same word as explain, but whereas explain has lost its underlying literal meaning, esplanade has retained at least a memory of it. It comes ultimately from Latin explānāre, which meant ‘flatten out’, and so esplanade (acquired via French from the Spanish past participle esplanada) was originally simply a ‘large level area’. Its application to the ‘promenade’ at seaside towns is a comparatively recent development.
=> explain
explicit: explicit: [17] Something that is explicit has literally been ‘unfolded’. Like the earlier borrowing explicate [16], the word comes from the past participle of Latin explicāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘un-’ and plicāre ‘fold’ (source of English ply and related to English fold). At first, in the 16th and 17th centuries, English retained the literal sense of the original, but gradually it dropped out in favour of the metaphorical ‘make clear, distinct, and open’ (already present in Latin).
=> exploit, fold, ply
face: face: [13] The notion that a person’s face ‘is’ their appearance, what they look like to the rest of the world, lies behind the word face. It probably comes from a prehistoric base *fac-, signifying ‘appear’. This gave rise to Latin faciēs, which originally meant ‘appearance, aspect, form’, and only secondarily, by figurative extension, ‘face’. In due course it passed via Vulgar Latin *facia into Old French as face, from which English acquired it (French, incidentally, dropped the sense ‘face’ in the 17th century, although the word face is retained for ‘front, aspect’, etc).

Related forms in English include facade [17], facet [17] (originally a diminutive), superficial and surface.
=> facade, facet, superficial, surface
faculty: faculty: [14] If one has a faculty for doing something, one finds it ‘easy’ to do. The word comes, via Old French faculte, from Latin facultās. This was a parallel form to facilitās (source of English facility [15]). Both were derived from Latin facilis ‘easy’ (whence English facile [15]), an adjective formed from the verb facere ‘do’. Since facilitās more closely resembled facilis, it retained its connotations of ‘easiness’, whereas by the classical period facultās had more or less lost them, coming to mean ‘capability, power’.
=> facile, facility
frank: frank: [13] To call someone frank is to link them with the Germanic people who conquered Gaul around 500 AD, the Franks, who gave their name to modern France and the French. After the conquest, full political freedom was granted only to ethnic Franks or to those of the subjugated Celts who were specifically brought under their protection. Hence, franc came to be used as an adjective meaning ‘free’ – a sense it retained when English acquired it from Old French: ‘He was frank and free born in a free city’, John Tiptoft, Julius Caesar’s commentaries 1470.

In both French and English, however, it gradually progressed semantically via ‘liberal, generous’ and ‘open’ to ‘candid’. Of related words in English, frankincense [14] comes from Old French franc encens, literally ‘superior incense’ (‘superior’ being a now obsolete sense of French franc), and franc [14], the French unit of currency, comes from the Latin phrase Francorum rex ‘king of the Franks’, which appeared on the coins minted during the reign of Jean le Bon (1350–64).

The Franks, incidentally, supposedly got their name from their preferred weapon, the throwing spear, in Old English franca.
=> french
fund: fund: [17] Latin fundus meant ‘bottom’. English originally acquired it via French as fond, and in the course of the 17th century re-latinized it to fund. The literal meaning ‘bottom’ was retained until the mid 18th century (‘a Glass-Bubble fix’d to the Fund of a Vessel’, British Apollo 1709), but gradually it gave way to the metaphorical ‘basic supply, particularly of money’. From fundus was derived the Latin verb fundāre ‘lay the bottom for, establish’ (source of English found), and the next step on from this was the noun fundāmentum ‘bottom part, foundation’, which gave English fundament [13] and fundamental [15].
=> found, fundament
furnish: furnish: [15] Far apart as they may now seem, furnish is closely parallel in its development with frame. Both originated as verbs based on from, in its earliest signification ‘forward movement, advancement, progress’. Frame was a purely English formation, but furnish goes back beyond that to prehistoric Germanic, where it was formed as *frumjan. This was borrowed into Vulgar Latin as *fromīre, which in due course diversified to *formīre and *fornīre, the form adopted into Old French as furnir.

Its lengthened stem furniss- provided English with furnish. To begin with this retained the ancestral sense ‘advance to completion, accomplish, fulfil’ (‘Behight [promise] no thing but that ye may furnish and hold it’, Melusine 1500). However, this died out in the mid 16th century, leaving the field clear for the semantic extension ‘provide’. The derivative furniture [16] comes from French fourniture, but its main meaning, ‘chairs, tables, etc’, recorded from as early as the 1570s, is a purely English development (the majority of European languages get their word for ‘furniture’ from Latin mōbīle ‘movable’: French meubles, Italian mobili, Spanish muebles, German möbel, Swedish möbler, Dutch meubelen, Russian mebel’ – indeed, even Middle English had mobles, though it retained the broader meaning ‘movable property’).

By another route, Old French furnir has also given English veneer.
=> from, furniture, veneer
hall: hall: [OE] Etymologically, a hall is a ‘roofed or covered place’. Its ultimate ancestor was prehistoric West and North Germanic *khallō, a derivative of *khal-, *khel- ‘cover, hide’ (a slightly different derivative produced English hell, and cell, clandestine, conceal, hull ‘pod’, and possibly colour and holster are all relatives, close or distant).

It retained much of its original meaning in Old English heall, which denoted simply a ‘large place covered by a roof’. This gradually became specialized to, on the one hand, ‘large residence’, and on the other, ‘large public room’. The main current sense, ‘entrance corridor’, dates from the 17th century (it derives from the fact that in former times the principal room of a house usually opened directly off the front door).
=> cell, clandestine, conceal, hell, hull
host: host: Indo-European *ghostis denoted ‘stranger’. From it were descended Germanic *gastiz (source of English guest), Greek xénos ‘guest, stranger’ (source of English xenon and xenophobia), and Latin hostis ‘stranger, enemy’. This original meaning is retained in the derived adjective hostile [16], but the noun itself in postclassical times came to mean ‘army’, and that is where (via Old French) English got host ‘army’ [13] from.

Its main modern sense, ‘large number’, is a 17th-century development. But Latin had another noun, hospes ‘host’, which was probably derived from hostis. Its stem form, hospit-, passed into Old French as hoste (whose modern French descendant hôte means both ‘host’ and ‘guest’). English borrowed this in the 13th century, giving it a second noun host, quite distinct in meaning, but ultimately of the same origin. (Other English words that owe their existence to Latin hospes include hospice, hospital, hostel, hotel, and ostler.) But that is not the end of the host story.

English has yet another noun host, meaning ‘bread of the Eucharist’ [14]. This comes via Old French hoiste from Latin hostia ‘sacrifice, victim’.
=> guest, hospital, hostile, hotel, ostler, xenon, xenophobia
hussar: hussar: [15] Ultimately, hussar is the same word as corsair. Its remote ancestor is Italian corsaro, which was borrowed via Old Serbian husar into Hungarian as huszár. This originally retained the meaning of corsair, ‘plunderer’, but gradually developed into ‘horseman’, and it was as ‘Hungarian horseman’ that English borrowed it.
=> corsair
individual: individual: [15] To begin with, individual retained in English its ancestral meaning ‘not able to be divided’: ‘in the name of the holy and individual Trinity’. Richard Whitbourne, Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland 1623. It was borrowed from medieval Latin indīviduālis, a derivative of Latin indīviduus ‘not divisible’, which in turn was based on dīviduus, a derivative of the verb dīvidere ‘divide’. The semantic move from ‘not divisible’ to ‘single, separate’ took place in the 17th century. (English acquired the formally parallel indivisible, incidentally, in the 14th century.)
=> divide
invest: invest: [16] The etymological notion underlying invest is of ‘putting on clothes’. It comes via Old French investir from Latin investīre, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and vestis ‘clothes’ (source of English vest, vestment, travesty, etc). It retained that original literal sense ‘clothe’ in English for several centuries, but now it survives only in its metaphorical descendant ‘instal in an office’ (as originally performed by clothing in special garments).

Its financial sense, first recorded in English in the early 17th century, is thought to have originated in Italian investire from the idea of dressing one’s capital up in different clothes by putting it into a particular business, stock, etc.
=> travesty, vest, vestment
labour: labour: [13] Labour comes via Old French labour from Latin labor. This has been linked with the verb labāre ‘slip’, and if the two were related it would mean that the underlying etymological meaning of labour was something like ‘stumble under a burden’. Most of the modern European descendants of Latin labor have progressed from the broad sense ‘work, exertion’ to more specialized meanings – French labourer denotes ‘plough’, for instance, and Spanish labrar ‘plough, carve, embroider’, etc. English has retained it as a formal alternative to work, although the additional obstetric sense developed in the 16th century.
large: large: [12] Latin largus, a word of unknown origin, meant ‘abundant’ and also ‘generous’. It retained the latter meaning when it came into English via Old French large (‘the poor King Reignier, whose large style agrees not with the leanness of his purse’, Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI 1593), but this now survives only in the derivative largesse [13]. ‘Abundant’, on the other hand, has provided the basis of the main modern English meaning ‘of great size’, which emerged in the 15th century.
minister: minister: [13] Etymologically, a minister is a person of ‘lower’ status, a ‘servant’. The word goes back via Old French ministre to Latin minister ‘servant, attendant’, which was derived from minus ‘less’. It retained this meaning when it arrived in English, and indeed it still survives in the verb minister. But already by the Middle Ages a specialized application to a ‘church functionary’ had developed, and in the 16th century this hardened into the present-day ‘clergyman’.

The political sense of the word developed in the 17th century, from the notion of a ‘servant’ of the crown. Derivatives from other languages to have established themselves in English include métier [18], which came via French from Vulgar Latin *misterium, an alteration of Latin ministerium ‘service’ (source of English ministry [14]), and minstrel.

And etymologically, minister is the antonym of master, whose Latin ancestor was based on magis ‘more’.
=> métier, minstrel, minus
money: money: [13] An epithet used in ancient Rome for the goddess Juno was Monēta (derived by some etymologists in the past from the Latin verb monēre ‘advise, warn’, although this is now regarded as rather dubious). The name was also applied to her temple in Rome, which contained a mint. And so in due course monēta came to mean ‘mint’ (a sense retained in English mint, which goes back via a circuitous route to monēta), then ‘stamp for coining’, and finally ‘coin’ – the meaning transmitted via Old French moneie to English money.
=> mint
noise: noise: [13] Unlikely as it may seem, the ancestor of English noise meant ‘sickness’. It comes from Latin nausea, source also, of course, of English nausea. This was used colloquially for the sort of ‘hubbub’ or ‘confusion’ which is often coincident with someone being sick (and particularly seasick, which was what nausea originally implied), and Old French took it over, as noise, with roughly these senses. They later developed to ‘noisy dispute’, and modern French noise has retained the ‘dispute’ element of this, while English noise has gone for the ‘intrusive sound’.
=> nausea, nautical, navy
once: once: [12] Once originated as the genitive form of one (the genitive case was widely used in Old and Middle English for making adverbs out of nouns – other examples include always, needs, nowadays, and towards). To begin with, this was clearly indicated by its spelling – ones – but from about the start of the 16th century -es was gradually replaced by -ce (reflecting the fact that once retained a voiceless /s/ at its end, whereas in ones it had been voiced to /z/).
=> one
position: position: [15] Position comes via Old French from Latin positiō, a noun formed from posit-, the past participial stem of Latin pōnere ‘put, place’. This was also the source of English posit [17], positive [13] (which etymologically means ‘placed down, laid down’, hence ‘emphatically asserted’), post (in the senses ‘mail’ and ‘job’), and posture [17].

And in addition it lies behind a wealth of English verbs (compose, depose, dispose [14], expose [15], impose, interpose [16], oppose, repose, suppose, transpose [14], etc) whose form underwent alteration by association with late Latin pausāre ‘stop’ (see POSE); postpone exceptionally has retained its link with pōnere.
=> compose, depose, dispose, expose, impose, oppose, positive, post, postpone, repose, suppose, transpose
rapid: rapid: [17] Like rape and rapture, rapid comes ultimately from Latin rapere ‘seize by force’. From this was derived the adjective rapidus, which originally denoted ‘carrying off by force’. The notion of ‘swiftness’ soon became incorporated into the meaning, however, and although the Latin adjective retained its original connotations of violence (it suggested ‘impetuous speed’ or ‘haste’), by the time it reached English it had simply become synonymous with ‘quick’.
=> rapture
retinue: retinue: [14] A retinue is etymologically ‘that which is retained’. The word was borrowed from Old French retenue, the feminine past participle of retenir ‘keep, restrain’ (source of English retain [14]). This in turn went back via Vulgar Latin *retenēre to Latin retinēre ‘hold back’, a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘back’ and tenēre ‘hold’ (source of English contain, obtain, etc). The notion behind retinue is of a body of men ‘retained’ in one’s service. Another English descendant of retinēre is rein.
=> contain, detain, obtain, rein, retain
rhododendron: rhododendron: [17] A rhododendron is etymologically a ‘rose-tree’. The term comes from Greek rhodódendron, a compound formed from rhódon ‘rose’ (apparently a relative of English rose) and déndron ‘tree’ (source of English dendrite [18] and dendrochronology [20]). This denoted the ‘oleander’, an application it retained through Latin rhododendron into English. The first record of its use for the plant we now know as the rhododendron dates from the mid 17th century.
=> rose
robe: robe: [13] A robe is etymologically ‘something stolen’, hence a ‘looted garment’, and finally simply a ‘(long) garment’. The word comes ultimately from Vulgar Latin *rauba, which was borrowed from the same Germanic base as produced English bereave and rob. It passed into English via Old French robe. This still retained the ancestral meaning ‘stolen things, spoils’ as well as the new ‘garment’, and in that sense it has given English rubbish and rubble.
=> rob
sheet: sheet: Sheet ‘cloth’ [OE] and sheet ‘rope attached to a sail’ [OE] are distinct words, although they have a common ancestor. This was the Germanic base *skaut-, *skut- ‘project’, which also produced English scot-free, scuttle ‘sink a ship’, shoot, shot, shout, shut, and skit. This produced two Old English nouns, scēte ‘cloth’ and scēata ‘sail-rope’, which have formally coalesced in modern English as sheet, but retained their distinctive meanings. (Sheet ‘cloth’ was not used specifically for ‘bed sheet’ until the 13th century.)
=> scot-free, scuttle, shoot, shot, shout, shut, skit
staple: staple: English has two distinct words staple, but they come from a common ancestor – prehistoric Germanic *stapulaz ‘pillar’. This evolved into English staple [OE], which at first retained its ancestral meaning ‘post, pillar’. The modern sense ‘U-shaped metal bar’ did not emerge until the end of the 13th century, and the details of its development from ‘pillar’ are obscure.

The Middle Low German and Middle Dutch descendant of *stapulaz was stapel, which had the additional meaning ‘market, shop’ (presumably from the notion of a stall situated behind the ‘pillars’ of an arcade). This was borrowed into Old French as estaple, which in turn gave English staple ‘market’ [15], hence ‘principal commercial commodity’.
story: story: [13] Story comes via Anglo-Norman estorie from Latin historia ‘account of events, narrative, history’ (source also of English history and storey). It originally retained the senses ‘factual account of past events’ and ‘past events in general’, but since the 17th century these have gradually been taken over by history, and the use of story has been concentrated more on ‘fictional narratives’.
=> history, storey
treacle: treacle: [14] Treacle is etymologically an ‘antidote to the bite of wild animals’. The word comes via Old French triacle and Latin thēriaca from Greek thēriaké. This was short for antídotos thēriaké ‘antidote to poisonous animals’, thēriaké being a derivative of thēríon ‘wild animal, poisonous animal’, which in turn came from thér ‘wild savage’. It retained its original meaning into English, but it then gradually broadened out into ‘medicine’, and the practice of disguising the unpleasant taste of medicine with sugar syrup led in the 17th century to its application to ‘syrup’.
tree: tree: [OE] Tree is part of an ancient and widespread family of ‘tree’-words that goes back ultimately to Indo-European *deru, *doru-. This appears originally to have designated specifically the ‘oak’, rather than ‘tree’ in general, an application retained by some of its descendants: Greek drūs, for instance (source of English dryad [14]), and Welsh derwen (a possible relative of English druid). From it came Germanic *trewam, which has evolved into Swedish träd, Danish træ, and English tree. Other English words from the same source include tray [OE] (etymologically a ‘wooden’ vessel), trough, and possibly tar.
=> druid, dryad, tar, tray, trough
varlet: varlet: [15] Varlet and valet [16] are doublets – they come from the same ultimate source. This was Vulgar Latin *vassus, a borrowing from Old Celtic *wasso- ‘young man, squire’. From *vassus were derived two medieval Latin diminutive forms: vassallus, which has given English vassal [14], and *vassellitus. This passed into Old French as vaslet, which diversified into valet (source of English valet) and varlet (source of English varlet).

Both to begin with retained their original connotations of a ‘young man in service to a knight’, and hence by extension any ‘feudal retainer or servant’, but while valet still denotes a ‘servant’, varlet went down in the world in the 16th century to ‘knave’.
=> valet, vassal
with: with: [OE] The ancestral meaning of with is ‘against’ (retained by its German relative wider). It goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *wi-, which denoted ‘separation’. The notion of ‘accompaniment’ is a secondary development, albeit an ancient one, and the idea of ‘instrumentality’ did not emerge until the 12th century.