英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

angel [angel 词源字典]: angel: [12] In a sense, English already had this word in Anglo-Saxon times; texts of around 950 mention englas ‘angels’. But in that form (which had a hard g) it came directly from Latin angelus. The word we use today, with its soft g, came from Old French angele (the ‘hard g’ form survived until the 13th century). The French word was in its turn, of course, acquired from Latin, which adopted it from Greek ángelos or ággelos.

This meant literally ‘messenger’, and its use in religious contexts arises from its being used as a direct translation of Hebrew mal’ākh ‘messenger’, the term used in the scriptures for God’s intermediaries. The Greek word itself may be of Persian origin.
=> evangelist[angel etymology, angel origin, 英语词源]
cadaver: cadaver: [16] Cadaver literally means ‘something that has fallen over’. It is a derivative of the Latin verb cadere ‘fall’ (from which English gets a wide range of other words, from case to accident). Its application to ‘dead body’ arises from the metaphorical use of the Latin verb for ‘die’.
=> accident, cadence, case
caesarian: caesarian: [17] The application of the adjective caesarian to the delivery of a baby by surgical incision through the abdomen and womb arises from the legend that Julius Caesar (c. 100–44 BC) himself or an earlier ancestor of his was born in this way. The name Caesar comes from the Latin phrase a caeso mātrisūtere, literally ‘from the mother’s cut womb’ (caesus was the past participle of the Latin verb caedere ‘cut’, from which English gets concise, incise, precise, etc). The abbreviation caesar for ‘caesarian section’ is mid 20th-century.
=> concise, incise, precise
coast: coast: [13] Latin costa meant ‘rib’ (hence the English medical term intercostal ‘between the ribs’), but also more generally ‘flank, side’. It was in this sense that it passed into Old French as coste, and subsequently into English. The modern meaning ‘seashore’ (which had already developed in Old French) arises from the shore being thought of as the ‘side’ or ‘edge’ of the land (compare seaside).

Amongst the senses of the French word little represented in English is ‘hillside, slope’; it was however adopted in North America for a ‘slope down which one slides on a sledge’, and came to be used in the mid 19th century as a verb meaning ‘sledge down such a slope’. That was the source of the modern verbal sense ‘freewheel’. The coster of costermonger [16] was originally costard, a variety of apple named from its prominent ‘ribs’.

And another hidden relative is cutlet [18], borrowed from French côtelette, literally ‘little rib’.
=> costermonger, cutlet, intercostal
condign: condign: [15] From its virtually exclusive modern use in the phrase condign punishment, condign has come to be regarded frequently as meaning ‘severe’, but etymologically it signifies ‘fully deserved’. It comes via Old French condigne from Latin condignus, a compound adjective formed from the intensive prefix comand dignus ‘worthy’ (source of English dainty, deign, dignity, disdain, and indignant, and related to decent). The collocation with punishment arises from the frequent use of the phrase in Tudor acts of parliament.
=> dainty, decent, deign, dignity, disdain, indignant
control: control: [15] Implausible as it may seem, control’s closest relative in English is contrarotating. It has its origins in a medieval method of checking accounts which involved a duplicate register, or ‘counter-roll’, as it was known (contrārotulus in medieval Latin, contrā meaning ‘opposite’ and rotulus being the diminutive of rota ‘wheel’).

From the medieval Latin noun a verb was formed, contrārotulāre, meaning ‘check accounts by such means’, and hence ‘exert authority’. This passed into English via Anglo-Norman contreroller. The spelling of the agent noun controller as comptroller, still encountered in certain official designations, arises from an erroneous 16th-century association of the first syllable with count, from late Latin computus.
=> rota, rotate
crack: crack: [OE] Old English had the verb cracian ‘make a sudden sharp noise’, but English did not acquire the noun crack until the 14th century. Both are of Germanic origin (modern German has the related krachen, for instance, and Dutch has kraken), and the verb’s hypothetical ancestor can be reconstructed as *krakojan. The notion of ‘sudden sharp noise’ is semantically primary (presumably it was originally onomatopoeic), and the prevalent modern sense ‘fissure’ arises from the connection between the noise of something breaking and the resultant line of fracture.
=> crock
east: east: [OE] Etymologically, east is the point of the compass at which the sun rises (and hence is a parallel formation to orient, which comes from a Latin word originally meaning ‘rising’). It goes back to an Indo-European base *aus-, source of a range of terms meaning not only ‘east’ but also ‘dawn’; Latin aurora, for instance, and Greek aúōs, had both senses.

Its Germanic descendant, *austo-, produced German ost, Dutch oosten, Swedish öster, and English east (which was subsequently borrowed by French as est). It was also the source of *Austron, the name of a goddess of the prehistoric Germanic peoples, originally the dawn-goddess, whose festival occurred in spring. In Old English her name was Ēastre, which is generally taken to be the ultimate source of English Easter (German Ostern ‘Easter’ has a parallel origin).
=> easter
gazette: gazette: [17] If the Sun or the Mirror were called the 22p, they would be echoing the origins of the word gazette. In Renaissance Venice, a ‘newspaper’ was termed casually gazeta de la novita (gazeta for short), literally a ‘pennyworth of news’ – for a gazeta was the name of a small Venetian copper coin (probably a diminutive form of gazza ‘magpie’).

Italian took the word over as gazzetta, and passed it on to English via French. The verbal use of gazette, ‘announce a military promotion officially’, arises from the practice of printing such announcements in the British government newspaper, the London Gazette (first published in the 17th century). The derived gazeteer [17], ultimately from Italian gazzettiere, originally meant ‘journalist’.

Its current sense ‘index of places’ was inspired by Laurence Echard’s The Gazetteer’s; or a Newsman’s Interpreter: Being a Geographical Index 1693.
insurgent: insurgent: [18] An insurgent is etymologically someone who ‘rises up’. The word comes from the Latin verb insurgere, which was formed from in- in the sense ‘against’ and surgere ‘rise’ (source of English surge and source). An insurgent is hence fairly straightforwardly a rebel, someone taking part in an uprising, a belligerent who is not part of an officially recognized fighting force.

Choice of vocabulary in this area tends to be controversial, however, and the use of insurgent to denote Iraqi irredentists after the Coalition invasion of 2003 was widely criticized – partly, perhaps, from the misconception that they were being characterized as ‘surging in’ from outside the country. The longer established insurrection [15], from the same ultimate source, is much less liable to such misunderstanding.
=> resource, resurrection, source, surge
spring: spring: [OE] The noun spring and the verb spring come from the same source: the Indo-European base *sprengh-, which denoted ‘rapid movement’. Of its Germanic verbal descendants, German and Dutch springen, like English spring, have moved on semantically to ‘jump’, but Swedish springa ‘run’ has stayed closer to its roots. The noun spring in Old English times denoted the place where a stream ‘rises’ from the ground, which soon evolved metaphorically into ‘source, origin’ in general.

The notion of ‘rising’ was also applied figuratively to the ‘beginning of the day’ and to the ‘emergence of new growth’, and the latter led in the 16th century, via the expression spring of the year, to the use of spring for the ‘season following winter’ (replacing the previous term Lent).
umbrage: umbrage: [15] Umbrage is one of a group of English words that go back ultimately to Latin umbra ‘shadow’. Indeed, it was originally used for ‘shade, shadow’ in English: ‘the light, and also … the false umbrage which the moon doth show forth’, Betham, Precepts of War 1544. The expression take umbrage ‘take offence’ arises from a metaphorical extension of ‘shadow’ to ‘suspicion’, which took place in French.

The word itself reached English via Old French umbrage from Vulgar Latin *umbrāticum, a noun use of the neuter form of Latin umbrāticus ‘shadowy’, which was derived from umbra. Other English words from the same source include adumbrate [16], penumbra [17], sombre, sombrero, umbel [16], and umbrella.
=> adumbrate, penumbra, sombre, sombrero, umbel, umbrella
act (n.): late 14c., "a thing done," from Old French acte "(official) document," and directly from Latin actus "a doing, a driving, impulse; a part in a play, act," and actum "a thing done," originally a legal term, both from agere "to do, set in motion, drive, urge, chase, stir up," from PIE root *ag- "to drive, draw out or forth, move" (cognates: Greek agein "to lead, guide, drive, carry off," agon "assembly, contest in the games," agogos "leader;" Sanskrit ajati "drives," ajirah "moving, active;" Old Norse aka "to drive;" Middle Irish ag "battle").

Theatrical ("part of a play," 1510s) and legislative (early 15c.) senses of the word also were in Latin. Meaning "display of exaggerated behavior" is from 1928. In the act "in the process" is from 1590s, perhaps originally from the 16c. sense of the act as "sexual intercourse." Act of God "uncontrollable natural force" recorded by 1726.
An act of God is an accident which arises from a cause which operates without interference or aid from man (1 Pars. on Cont. 635); the loss arising wherefrom cannot be guarded against by the ordinary exertions of human skill and prudence so as to prevent its effect. [William Wait, "General Principles of the Law," Albany, 1879]
air (n.1): c. 1300, "invisible gases that make up the atmosphere," from Old French air "atmosphere, breeze, weather" (12c.), from Latin aerem (nominative aer) "air, lower atmosphere, sky," from Greek aer (genitive aeros) "air" (related to aenai "to blow, breathe"), which is of unknown origin, possibly from a base *awer- and thus related to aeirein "to raise" and arteria "windpipe, artery" (see aorta) on notion of "lifting, that which rises." In Homer mostly "thick air, mist;" later "air" as one of the four elements.

Words for "air" in Indo-European languages tend to be associated with wind, brightness, sky. In English, air replaced native lyft, luft (see loft (n.)). To be in the air "in general awareness" is from 1875; up in the air "uncertain, doubtful" is from 1752. To build castles in the air is from 1590s (in 17c. English had airmonger "one preoccupied with visionary projects"). Broadcasting sense (as in on the air) first recorded 1927. To give (someone) the air "dismiss" is from 1900. Air pollution is attested by 1870.
blue chip (adj.): also blue-chip, in reference to the high-value poker counter, from 1904 in the figurative sense of "valuable;" stock exchange sense, in reference to "shares considered a reliable investment," is first recorded 1929; especially of stocks that saw spectacular rises in value in the four years or so before the Wall Street crash of that year.
Canopus (n.): bright southern star, 1550s, ultimately from Greek Kanopos, Kanobos perhaps from Egyptian Kahi Nub "golden earth." The association with "weight" found in the name of the star in some northern tongues may reflect the fact that it never rises far above the horizon in those latitudes. Also the name of a town in ancient lower Egypt (famous for its temple of Serapis), hence canopic jar, canopic vase, which often held the entrails of embalmed bodies (1878).
carminative (adj.): early 15c., from Latin carminat- (past participle stem of carminare "to card," from carmen, genitive carminis, "a card for wool or flax," which is related to carrere "to card;" see card (v.2)) + -ive. As a noun from 1670s.
A medical term from the old theory of humours. The object of carminatives is to expel wind, but the theory was that they dilute and relax the gross humours from whence the wind arises, combing them out like knots in wool. [Hensleigh Wedgwood, "A Dictionary of English Etymology," 1859-65]
fontanelle (n.): also fontanel, 1540s, "hollow between two muscles," from French fontanelle (16c.), from Old French fontenele "small source, fountain, spring; fontanelle," diminutive of fontaine "spring" (see fountain), on analogy of the dent in the earth where a spring arises. In reference to the "hollow" in a baby's skull, it is first recorded 1741.
insurgent (n.): "one who rises in revolt," 1765, from Latin insurgentem (nominative insurgens), present participle of insurgere "rise up, rise against, revolt," from in- "against," or perhaps merely intensive, + surgere "to rise" (see surge). An obsolete verb insurge "to rise in opposition or insurrection" is attested from 1530s.
lost (adj.): "defeated," c. 1300; "wasted, spent in vain," c. 1500; also "no longer to be found" (1520s), from past participle of lose. Lost Cause in reference to the Southern U.S. bid for independence is from the title of E.A. Pollard's history of the CSA and the rebellion (1866). Lost Generation in reference to the period 1914-18 first attested 1926 in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," where he credits it to Gertrude Stein. Lost-and-found as the name of a department where misplaced articles are brought or sought is by 1907.
Monte Carlo fallacy: 1957, named for resort in Monaco famous for its gambling casinos. The fallacy of thinking that the probability of a particular outcome rises with the successive number of opposite outcomes. Contrary to the Monte Carlo fallacy, if the roulette wheel stops on black 99 times in a row, the chances that the 100th spin will be red are still just under 50-50.
nightjar (n.): nocturnal bird, goatsucker, 1620s, from night + jar (v.). So called for the "jarring" sounds made by the male when the female is brooding, which have been described as a "churring trill that seems to change direction as it rises and falls." An Old English word for it was nihthræfn "night raven."
orchestra (n.): c. 1600, "area in an ancient theater for the chorus," from Latin orchestra, from Greek orkhestra, semicircular space where the chorus of dancers performed, with suffix -tra denoting place + orkheisthai "to dance," intensive of erkhesthai "to go, come," from PIE root *ergh- "to mount" (cognates: Sanskrit rghayati "trembles, rages, raves," rnoti "rises, moves," arnah "welling stream;" Old Persian rasatiy "he comes;" Greek ornynai "to rouse, start;" Latin oriri "to rise," origo "a beginning;" Gothic rinnan, Old English irnan "to flow, run"). In ancient Rome, it referred to the place in the theater reserved for senators and other dignitaries. Meaning "group of musicians performing at a concert, opera, etc." first recorded 1720; "part of theater in front of the stage" is from 1768.
Orient (n.): c. 1300, "the East" (originally usually meaning what is now called the Middle East), from Old French orient "east" (11c.), from Latin orientem (nominative oriens) "the rising sun, the east, part of the sky where the sun rises," originally "rising" (adj.), present participle of oriri "to rise" (see orchestra). The Orient Express was a train that ran from Paris to Istanbul via Vienna 1883-1961, from the start associated with espionage and intrigue.
P: a rare letter in the initial position in Germanic, in part because by Grimm's Law PIE p- became Germanic f-; even with the early Latin borrowings in Old English, -p- takes up a little over 4 pages in J.R. Clark Hall's "Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary," compared to 31 pages for B and more than 36 for F. But it now is the third-most-common initial letter in the English vocabulary, and with C and S comprises nearly a third of the dictionary, a testimony to the flood of words that have entered the language since 1066 from Latin, Greek, and French.

To mind one's Ps and Qs (1779), possibly is from confusion of these letters among children learning to write. Another theory traces it to old-time tavern-keepers tracking their patrons' bar tabs in pints and quarts. But see also to be P and Q (1610s), "to be excellent," a slang phrase said to derive from prime quality.
phoenix (n.): Old English and Old French fenix, from Medieval Latin phenix, from Latin phoenix, from Greek phoinix, mythical bird of Arabia which flew to Egypt every 500 years to be reborn, also "the date" (fruit and tree), also "Phoenician," literally "purple-red," perhaps a foreign word (Egyptian has been suggested), or from phoinos "blood-red." Exact relation and order of the senses in Greek is unclear.
Ðone wudu weardaþ wundrum fæger
fugel feþrum se is fenix hatan
["Phoenix," c.900]
Spelling assimilated to Greek 16c. (see ph). Figurative sense of "that which rises from the ashes of what was destroyed" is attested from 1590s. The city in Arizona, U.S., so called because it was founded in 1867 on the site of an ancient Native American settlement.
quaternary (adj.): early 15c., "consisting of four parts," from Latin quaternarius "of four each, containing four," from quaterni "four each, by fours," from quater "four times," related to quattuor "four" (see four). Also as a noun, "the number four" (mid-15c.), from Latin quaternarius.

In geological sense, attested from 1843 in English, proposed 1829 by French geologist Jules Pierre François Stanislas Desnoyers (1800-1887) as name for "the fourth great epoch of geological time," but because it comprises only the age of man, and the other epochs are many hundred times longer, not all accepted it.
radius (n.): 1590s, "cross-shaft," from Latin radius "staff, stake, rod; spoke of a wheel; ray of light, beam of light; radius of a circle," of unknown origin. Perhaps related to radix "root," but Tucker suggests connection to Sanskrit vardhate "rises, makes grow," via root *neredh- "rise, out, extend forth;" or else Greek ardis "sharp point."

The geometric sense first recorded 1610s. Plural is radii. Meaning "circular area of defined distance around some place" is attested from 1953. Meaning "shorter bone of the forearm" is from 1610s in English (the Latin word had been used thus by the Romans).
reek (n.): Old English rec (Anglian), riec (West Saxon), "smoke from burning material," probably from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse reykr, Danish rǿg, Swedish rök "smoke, steam," from Proto-Germanic *raukiz (cognates: Old Frisian rek, Middle Dutch rooc, Old High German rouh, German Rauch "smoke, steam"), from PIE *reug- "to vomit, belch;" also "smoke, cloud." Sense of "stench" is attested 1650s, via the notion of "that which rises" (compare reek (v.)).
riser (n.): late 14c., "rebel," agent noun from rise (v.). Meaning "one who rises" (from bed, in a certain manner) is mid-15c. Meaning "upright part of a step" is from 1771.
rising (n.): c. 1300, "resurrection, act of one who rises," verbal noun from rise (v.). Of heavenly bodies from mid-14c. Meaning "a getting up from bed" is c. 1400. Sense of "insurrection" is late 14c.
salient (adj.): 1560s, "leaping," a heraldic term, from Latin salientem (nominative saliens), present participle of salire "to leap," from PIE root *sel- (4) "to jump" (cognates: Greek hallesthai "to leap," Middle Irish saltraim "I trample," and probably Sanskrit ucchalati "rises quickly").

It was used in Middle English as an adjective meaning "leaping, skipping." The meaning "pointing outward" (preserved in military usage) is from 1680s; that of "prominent, striking" first recorded 1840, from salient point (1670s), which refers to the heart of an embryo, which seems to leap, and translates Latin punctum saliens, going back to Aristotle's writings. Hence, the "starting point" of anything.
Skee-Ball (n.): 1909, proprietary name (Skee-Ball Alley Company, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.), the first element said to represent the old alternative spelling of ski (v.).
Skee ball bowling, in which the ball is jumped or skeed into the pockets in the same manner as a skee-jumper rises from the bump in his flight, is a new and unique hand-ball game that seems destined to great popularity. ["Popular Mechanics," July 1909]
stair (n.): Old English stæger "stair, flight of steps, staircase," from Proto-Germanic *staigri (cognates: Middle Dutch stegher, Dutch steiger "a stair, step, quay, pier, scaffold;" German Steig "path," Old English stig "narrow path"), from PIE *steigh- "go, rise, stride, step, walk" (cognates: Greek steikhein "to go, march in order," stikhos "row, line, rank, verse;" Sanskrit stighnoti "mounts, rises, steps;" Old Church Slavonic stignati "to overtake," stigna "place;" Lithuanian staiga "suddenly;" Old Irish tiagaim "I walk;" Welsh taith "going, walk, way"). Originally also a collective plural; stairs developed by late 14c.
sub-: word-forming element meaning "under, beneath; behind; from under; resulting from further division," from Latin preposition sub "under, below, beneath, at the foot of," also "close to, up to, towards;" of time, "within, during;" figuratively "subject to, in the power of;" also "a little, somewhat" (as in sub-horridus "somewhat rough").

This is said to be from PIE *(s)up- (perhaps representing *ex-upo-), a variant form of the root *upo- "from below," hence "turning upward, upward, up, up from under, over, beyond" (cognates: Sanskrit upa "near, under, up to, on," Greek hypo "under," Gothic iup, Old Norse, Old English upp "up, upward," Hittite up-zi "rises"). The Latin word also was used as a prefix and in various combinations.

In Latin assimilated to following -c-, -f-, -g-, -p-, and often -r- and -m-. In Old French the prefix appears in the full Latin form only "in learned adoptions of old Latin compounds" [OED], and in popular use it was represented by sous-, sou-; as in French souvenir from Latin subvenire, souscrire (Old French souzescrire) from subscribere, etc.

The original meaning is now obscured in many words from Latin (suggest, suspect, subject, etc.). The prefix is active in Modern English, sometimes meaning "subordinate" (as in subcontractor); "inferior" (17c., as in subhuman); "smaller" (18c.); "a part or division of" (c. 1800, as in subcontinent).
Tammuz (n.): Babylonian and Assyrian god (identified with Adon), according to Klein's sources probably from Babylonian Du'uzu, contraction of Dumu-zi "the son who rises," also interpeted as "the faithful son."
waterline (n.): also water-line, 1620s, line where the water rises to on the hull of a ship afloat, from water (n.1) + line (n.).
Scyphozoa: "A class of marine coelenterates which comprises the jellyfishes", Modern Latin (plural), from Greek skuphos 'drinking cup' + Greek zōion 'animal'.
araneid: "An invertebrate of an order that comprises the spiders", Late 19th century: from modern Latin Araneida (former order name), from aranea 'spider'.
Chiroptera: "An order of mammals that comprises the bats", Modern Latin (plural), from chiro- 'hand' + Greek pteron 'wing'.
Trichoptera: "An order of insects that comprises the caddis flies", Modern Latin (plural), from tricho- 'hair' + pteron 'wing'.
macropod: "A plant-eating marsupial mammal of an Australasian family that comprises the kangaroos and wallabies", Late 19th century: from modern Latin Macropodidae (plural), from macro- + Greek pous, pod- 'foot'.
Aves: "A class of vertebrates which comprises the birds", Latin, plural of avis 'bird'.
Ruminantia: "With plural concord. A division of hoofed mammals that comprises the ruminants, now regarded as a suborder of Artiodactyla that excludes the camel family", Early 19th cent.; earliest use found in William Lawrence (1783–1867), surgeon. From scientific Latin Ruminantia, group name, specific use of classical Latin rūminantia, neuter plural of the present participle of rūminārī or rūmināre ruminate.
alliaceous: "Relating to or denoting plants of a group that comprises the onions and other alliums", Late 18th century: from Latin allium 'garlic' + -aceous; compare with the modern Latin taxonomic family name Alliaceae.
omohyoid: "Designating a long slender digastric muscle which arises from the upper border of the shoulder blade and passes obliquely along the side and front of the neck to the lower border of the hyoid bone", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in George Viner Ellis (1812–1900). From omo- + hyoid, after omohyoideus.
Isoptera: "An order of insects that comprises the termites", Modern Latin (plural), from Greek isos 'equal' + pteron 'wing'.
peroneus longus: "A muscle of the lateral side of the leg which arises from the fibula, inserts on to the cuneiform and first metatarsal bones via a long tendon passing under the foot, and serves to extend the ankle and evert the foot", Late 17th cent. From scientific Latin peroneus longus from post-classical Latin peroneus + classical Latin longus.
profundus: "A deep-seated muscle; specifically the flexor digitorum profundus muscle, which arises from the ulna, flexes the distal phalanges of the fingers, and is situated beneath the muscle which flexes the middle phalanges", Late 17th cent. From classical Latin profundus (originally in post-classical Latin or scientific Latin musculus profundus).
peroneus brevis: "A muscle of the lateral side of the leg that arises from the fibula, inserts on to the fifth metatarsal bone, and acts to evert the foot", Early 18th cent.; earliest use found in James Drake (d. 1707), political and medical writer. From scientific Latin peroneus brevis from post-classical Latin peroneus + classical Latin brevis short.