quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- caribou



[caribou 词源字典] - caribou: [17] Caribou is the name of a close North American relative of the reindeer, and it refers literally to the way in which the animal scratches at the snow with its hooves to find the grass, moss, etc that it eats. It comes from Mi’kmaq galipu (Mi’kmaq is an Algonquian language of eastern Canada), meaning ‘snowshoveller’, which in Canadian French became caribou.
[caribou etymology, caribou origin, 英语词源] - broken (adj.)




- late 14c., past participle adjective from break (v.). Broken record in reference to someone continually repeating the same thing is from 1944, in reference to scratches on records that cause the needle to jump back and repeat.
When Britain's Minister of State, Selwyn Lloyd[,] became bored with a speech by Russia's Andrei Vishinsky in UN debate, he borrowed a Dizzy Gillespie bebop expression and commented: "Dig that broken record." While most translators pondered the meaning, a man who takes English and puts it into Chinese gave this translation: "Recover the phonograph record which you have discarded." ["Jet," Oct. 15, 1953]
- harsh (adj.)




- originally of texture, "hairy," 1530s, probably from Middle English harske "rough, coarse, sour" (c. 1300), a northern word of Scandinavian origin (compare Danish and Norwegian harsk "rancid, rank"), related to Middle Low German harsch "rough, raw," German harst "a rake;" perhaps from PIE root *kars- "to scrape, scratch, rub, card" (cognates: Lithuanian karsiu "to comb," Old Church Slavonic krasta, Russian korosta "to itch," Latin carduus "thistle," Sanskrit kasati "rubs, scratches"). Meaning "offensive to feelings" is from 1570s; that of "disagreeable, rude" from 1610s.
- raccoon (n.)




- also racoon, c. 1600, arocoun, from Algonquian (Powhatan) arahkun, from arahkunem "he scratches with the hands." Early forms included Capt. John Smith's raugroughcum. In Norwegian, vaskebjørn, literally "wash-bear."
- row (n.1)




- "line of people or things," Old English ræw "a row, line; succession, hedge-row," probably from Proto-Germanic *rai(h)waz (cognates: Middle Dutch rie, Dutch rij "row;" Old High German rihan "to thread," riga "line;" German Reihe "row, line, series;" Old Norse rega "string"), possibly from PIE root *rei- "to scratch, tear, cut" (cognates: Sanskrit rikhati "scratches," rekha "line"). Meaning "a number of houses in a line" is attested from mid-15c., originally chiefly Scottish and northern English. Phrase a hard row to hoe attested from 1823, American English.
- scarification (n.)




- c. 1400, "act of covering with scratches or slight cuts," from Old French scarification (14c.), from Late Latin scarificationem (nominative scarificatio), noun of action from past participle stem of scarificare, from Latin scarifare "scratch open," from Greek skariphasthai "to scratch an outline, sketch," from skariphos "pencil, stylus," from PIE root *skribh- "to cut, separate, sift" (see script (n.)).
- scratchy (adj.)




- 1710, "affected with 'the scratch,'" a skin disease, from scratch (n.1) + -y (2). Meaning "composed of scratches" is from 1827; that of "grating" is from 1866. Of sounds (especially in reproduction) from 1889. Related: Scratchiness.