英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

almond: almond: [13] The l in almond is a comparatively recent addition; its immediate source, Latin amandula, did not have one (and nor, correspondingly, do French amande, Portuguese amendoa, Italian mandola, or German mandel). But the relative frequency of the prefix al- in Latin-derived words seems to have prompted its grafting on to amandula in its passage from Latin to Old French, giving a hypothetical *almandle and eventually al(e)mande.

French in due course dropped the l, but English acquired the word when it was still there. Going further back in time, the source of amandula was Latin amygdula, of which it was an alteration, and amygdula in turn was borrowed from the Greek word for ‘almond’, amygdálē. The Latin and Greek forms have been reborrowed into English at a much later date in various scientific terms: amygdala, for instance, an almond-shaped mass of nerve tissue in the brain; amygdalin, a glucoside found in bitter almonds; and amygdaloid, a rock with almondshaped cavities.
angle: angle: There have been two distinct words angle in English. The older is now encountered virtually only in its derivatives, angler and angling, but until the early 19th century an angle was a ‘fishing hook’ (or, by extension, ‘fishing tackle’). It entered the language in the Old English period, and was based on Germanic *angg- (source also of German angel ‘fishing tackle’).

An earlier form of the word appears to have been applied by its former inhabitants to a fishhook-shaped area of Schleswig, in the Jutland peninsula; now Angeln, they called it Angul, and so they themselves came to be referred to as Angles. They brought their words with them to England, of course, and so both the country and the language, English, now contain a reminiscence of their fishhooks. Angle in the sense of a ‘figure formed by two intersecting lines’ entered the language in the 14th century (Chaucer is its first recorded user).

It came from Latin angulus ‘corner’, either directly or via French angle. The Latin word was originally a diminutive of *angus, which is related to other words that contain the notion of ‘bending’, such as Greek ágkūra (ultimate source of English anchor) and English ankle. They all go back to Indo-European *angg- ‘bent’, and it has been speculated that the fishhook angle, with its temptingly bent shape, may derive from the same source.
=> english; anchor, ankle
aspic: aspic: [18] Aspic was borrowed from French, where, like the archaic English asp which reputedly bit Cleopatra, it also means ‘snake’ (ultimately from Greek aspís). This has led to speculation that aspic the jelly was named from aspic the snake on the basis that the colours and patterns in which moulds of aspic were made in the 18th and 19th centuries resembled a snake’s coloration.

There does not appear to be any watertight evidence for this rather far-fetched theory, and perhaps more plausible is some connection with French aspic ‘lavender, spikenard’, formerly used for flavouring aspic, or with Greek aspís ‘shield’ (source of aspidistra [19]), on the basis that the earliest aspic moulds were shield-shaped.
bacterium: bacterium: [19] Bacterium was coined in the 1840s from Greek baktérion, a diminutive of báktron ‘stick’, on the basis that the originally discovered bacteria were rod-shaped. At first it was sometimes anglicized to bactery, but the Latin form has prevailed. Related, but a later introduction, is bacillus [19]: this is a diminutive of Latin baculum ‘stick’, and the term was again inspired by the microorganism’s shape. Latin baculum is also responsible, via Italian bacchio and its diminutive form bacchetta, for the long French loaf, the baguette.
=> bacillus, baguette, débacle, imbecile
basilisk: basilisk: [14] Greek basilískos meant literally ‘little king’ – it was a diminutive of basiléus ‘king’, source also of English basil [15] (probably from the herb’s use by the Greeks in certain royal potions) and of English basilica [16] (a church built originally on the plan of a royal palace). The Greeks used it for a ‘goldcrested wren’, but also for a type of serpent, and it is this latter use which developed into the fabulous monster of classical and medieval times, whose breath and glance could kill. The name was said by Pliny to be based on the fact that the basilisk had a crown-shaped mark on its head.
=> basil, basilica
basin: basin: [13] Basin comes via Old French bacin from medieval Latin *bacchinus, a derivative of Vulgar Latin *bacca ‘water vessel’, which may originally have been borrowed from Gaulish. The Old French diminutive bacinet produced English basinet ‘helmet’ [14] and, with a modification of the spelling, bassinette ‘cradle’ [19], which was originally applied in French to any vaguely basin-shaped object.
=> basinet, bassinette
bulb: bulb: [16] Bulb can be traced back to Greek bólbos, which was a name for various plants with a rounded swelling underground stem. In its passage via Latin bulbus to English it was often applied specifically to the ‘onion’, and that was its original meaning in English. Its application to the light bulb, dating from the 1850s, is an extension of an earlier 19th-century sense ‘bulbshaped swelling in a glass tube’, used from the 1830s for thermometer bulbs.
catapult: catapult: [16] The first catapults were large military machines for hurling missiles at the enemy (originally darts, in contrast with the ballista, which discharged large rocks, but the distinction did not last); the schoolboy’s handheld catapult, consisting of a piece of elastic fixed in a Y-shaped frame, did not appear until the latter part of the 19th century. Etymologically, their name is a fairly straightforward description of what they do: it comes ultimately from Greek katapáltēs, which was formed from katá- ‘down’, hence ‘against’, and pállein ‘hurl’.
chickpea: chickpea: [18] Chickpeas have nothing to do with chickens, and only remotely anything to do with peas (they are both legumes). The word comes ultimately from Latin cicer (the name of the Roman orator Cicero is based on it – one of his ancestors must have had a chickpea-shaped wart). That came into English in the 14th century, by way of Old French, as chich, and chich remained for several centuries the name of the vegetable. The French, meanwhile, noting the leguminous resemblance, had taken to calling it pois chiche, which the English duly translated in the 16th century as chich-pea. Later, folk-etymology transformed chich to chick.
coin: coin: [14] Latin cuneus meant ‘wedge’ (from it we get cuneiform ‘wedge-shaped script’). It passed into Old French as coing or coin, where it developed a variety of new meanings. Primary amongst these was ‘corner-stone’ or ‘corner’, a sense preserved in English mainly in the now archaic spelling quoin. But also, since the die for stamping out money was often wedge-shaped, or operated in the manner of a wedge, it came to be referred to as a coin, and the term soon came to be transferred to the pieces of money themselves.
=> quoin
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
crater: crater: [17] Greek kratér meant ‘bowl’, or more specifically ‘mixing bowl’: it was a derivative of the base *kerā, which also produced the verb kerannúnai ‘mix’. (Crater or krater is still used in English as a technical term for the bowl or jar used by the ancient Greeks for mixing wine and water in.) Borrowed into Latin as crātēr, it came to be used metaphorically for the bowl-shaped depression at the mouth of a volcano. Its acquisition by English is first recorded in Samuel Purchas’s Pilgrimage 1619.
crescent: crescent: [14] Crescent is one of a wide range of words (including create, crescendo, concrete, crew, accretion, croissant, increase, and recruit) bequeathed to English by the Latin verb crēscere ‘grow’. In the case of crescent, it came in the form of the present participial stem crēscent-, which passed into English via Old French creissant and Anglo-Norman cressaunt.

Its use in the Latin phrase luna crescens ‘waxing moon’ led later to its application to the shape of the new moon, hence the modern meaning of crescent. The modern French form croissant has given English the term for a crescent-shaped puffpastry roll [19], so named allegedly from its original manufacture following the defeat of the Turkish besiegers of Budapest in 1686, whose Muslim symbol was the crescent.
=> accretion, create, creature, crew, croissant, increase, recruit
diaper: diaper: [14] The notion underlying diaper is of extreme whiteness. It comes ultimately from Byzantine Greek díaspros, which was a compound formed from the intensive prefix diaand áspros ‘white’. (Aspros itself has an involved history: it started life as Latin asper ‘rough’ – source of English asperity – which was applied particularly to bas-relief on carvings and coins; it was borrowed into Byzantine Greek and used as a noun to designate silver coins, and their brightness and shininess led to its reconversion into an adjective, meaning ‘white’.) Díaspros appears originally to have been applied to ecclesiastical vestments, and subsequently to any shiny fabric.

When the word first entered English, via medieval Latin diasprum and Old French diapre, it referred to a rather rich silk fabric embellished with gold thread, but by the 16th century it was being used for less glamorous textiles, of white linen, with a small diamond-shaped pattern. The specific application to a piece of such cloth used as a baby’s nappy (still current in American English) seems to have developed in the 16th century.
=> asperity
disc: disc: [17] Disc comes ultimately from Greek dískos ‘quoit’, a derivative of the verb dikein ‘throw’. This passed into Latin as discus, adopted by English in the 17th century in its original athletic sense. The most salient semantic feature of the discus was perhaps its shape, and it was this that English took over in the form disc (either adapted from Latin or borrowed from French disque). The spelling disk is preferred in American English, and it is the standard form used for ‘disc-shaped computer storage device’. Other English words ultimately derived from Latin discus are dais, desk, and dish.
=> dais, desk, dish
feature: feature: [14] Feature comes ultimately from Latin factūra, a derivative of the verb facere ‘do, make’ which meant literally ‘making, formation’. Elements of this original sense remained when the word reached English via Old French faiture – when John Dymmok wrote in 1600 of ‘horses of a fine feature’, for example, he was referring to their shape or general conformation – but already a semantic narrowing down to the ‘way in which the face is shaped’ had taken place.

This meaning was then distributed, as it were, to the individual components of the face, and hence (in the 17th century) to any distinctive or characteristic part.
=> difficult, fact, factory, fashion, feasible, feat
frog: frog: [OE] Frog comes from Old English frogga, which probably started life as a playful alternative to the more serious frosc or forsc. This derived from the pre-historic Germanic *fruskaz, which also produced German frosch and Dutch vorsch. Its use as a derogatory synonym for ‘French person’ goes back to the late 18th century, and was presumably inspired by the proverbial French appetite for the animals’ legs (although in fact frog as a general term of abuse can be traced back to the 14th century, and in the 17th century it was used for ‘Dutch person’).

It is not clear whether frog ‘horny wedge-shaped pad in a horse’s hoof’ [17] and frog ‘ornamental braiding’ [18] are the same word; the former may have been influenced by French fourchette and Italian forchetta, both literally ‘little fork’.
fuse: fuse: English has two distinct words fuse. The noun, ‘igniting device’ [17], comes via Italian fuso from Latin fūsus ‘spindle’, a word of unknown origin. Its modern application comes from the fact that the long thin shape of the original gunpowder-filled tubes used for setting off bombs reminded people of spindles. The Vulgar Latin diminutive form of fūsus, *fūsellus, gave French fuseau ‘spindle’, which is the ultimate source of English fuselage [20] (etymologically, ‘something shaped like a spindle’).

The verb fuse ‘melt’ [17] probably comes from fūsus, the past participle of Latin fundere ‘pour, melt’ (source of English found, foundry, and fusion [16]).
=> fuselage; found, foundry, fusion
helicopter: helicopter: [19] The term helicopter was coined in the mid-19th century from Greek hélix ‘spiral’ (source of English helix [16] and helical [17]) and Greek ptéron ‘wing’ (source of English pterodactyl and related to feather). The French were first in the field with hélicoptère, and the earliest record of the word in English, in 1861, was the barely anglicized helicoptere, but by the late 1880s the modern form helicopter was being used. (These 19th-century helicopters were of course a far cry from the present-day rotorblade- driven craft, which were introduced in the late 1930s; as their name suggests, they were lifted – or more usually not lifted – by rotating spiral-shaped aerofoils.)
=> feather, helical, helix, pterodactyl
hook: hook: [OE] Hook and its Germanic relatives, German haken, Dutch haak, Swedish hake, and Danish hage, go back to a prehistoric *keg- or *keng- ‘bent object’, from which English also gets hank [14] (via Old Norse *hanku). Old Norse haki ‘hook’ was the source of a now obsolete English hake ‘hook’, which may have been the inspiration for the fish-name hake [15] (the hake having a hook-shaped lower jaw). Hookah ‘water-pipe’ [18], incidentally, has no etymological connection with hook; it comes via Urdu from Arabic huqqah ‘small box’.
=> hake, hank
lens: lens: [17] The Latin word for a ‘lentil’ was lēns; and when 17th-century scientists wanted a term for a round biconvex (lentil-shaped) piece of glass, they needed to look no further than lens. English lentil [13] itself comes via Old French from Latin lenticula, a diminutive form of lēns.
=> lentil
ocarina: ocarina: [19] The ocarina, a primitive sort of musical instrument played by blowing, gets its name from a supposed resemblance to a goose (it is shaped like an elongated egg, with a neck-like mouthpiece). Italian ocarina means literally ‘little goose’. It is a diminutive form of oca ‘goose’, which in turn goes back to Latin auca, a derivative of avis ‘bird’.
=> aviary
onyx: onyx: [13] Greek ónux meant ‘claw, fingernail’ (it is distantly related to English nail). Certain sorts of onyx are pink with white streaks, and a resemblance to pink fingernails with their paler crescent-shaped mark at the base led the Greeks to name the stone ónux. The word travelled to English via Latin onyx and Old French onix.
=> nail
ovary: ovary: [17] Latin ōvum ‘egg’ came from the same Indo-European base (*ōwo-) as produced English egg. From it were derived the medieval Latin adjective ōvāl is ‘egg-shaped’ (source of English oval [16]) and the modern Latin noun ōvārium (whence English ovary). Also from ōvum come English ovate [18] and ovulate [19], and the Latin noun itself was adopted as a technical term in biology in the early 18th century.
=> egg
pine: pine: [OE] English has two words pine. The treename was borrowed from Latin pīnus, which some have traced to the Indo-European base *pīt- ‘resin’ (source of English pituitary [17]). Pine-cones were originally called pineapples [14], but in the mid 17th century the name was transferred to the tropical plant whose juicy yellow-fleshed fruit was held to resemble a pinecone.

The Latin term for ‘pine-cone’ was pīnea, whose Vulgar Latin derivative *pīneolus has given English pinion ‘cog-wheel’ [17], and it seems likely that English pinnace [16] comes via French and Spanish from Vulgar Latin *pīnācea nāvis ‘ship made of pine-wood’. And the pinot noir [20] grape is etymologically the grape with ‘pine-cone’-shaped bunches. Pine ‘languish’ is a derivative of an unrecorded Old English noun *pīne ‘torture’, originally borrowed into Germanic from pēna, the post-classical descendant of Latin poena ‘penalty’ (source of English pain).
=> pinion, pinnace, pituitary; pain
plough: plough: [OE] Plough was not the original English word for an ‘implement for turning over the soil’. That was Old English sulh, a relative of Latin sulcus ‘furrow’. Plough was borrowed in the 10th century from Old Norse plógr, a descendant of prehistoric Germanic *plōgaz. And this in turn was derived from a base *plōgacquired from one of the ancient Indo-European languages of northern Italy (source also of Latin plaustrum ‘wagon’). The earliest record we have of the word being used for the characteristically shaped group of seven stars in Ursa major is from early 16th-century Scotland.
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’.
thyroid: thyroid: [18] The thyroid glands are situated in the neck, and they get their name ultimately from a comparison of the shape of the large oblong cartilage in front of the throat (which includes the Adam’s apple) with that of a door. The word comes via early modern French thyroide from Greek thuroidés ‘door-shaped’, an alteration of thureoeidés, which was derived from thúrā ‘door’ (a relative of English door). The term khóndros thureoiedés, literally ‘door-shaped cartilage’, was used by the Greek physician Galen for the ‘cartilage in front of the throat’ (now known in English as the thyroid cartilage).
=> door, foreign
trapeze: trapeze: [19] Trapeze and quadruped are ultimately the same word: both mean etymologically ‘four feet’. Trapeze comes via French trapèze and late Latin trapezium (source of English trapezium [16]) from Greek trapézion ‘small table’. This was a diminutive form of trápeza ‘table’, literally ‘four-footed’ thing, a compound noun formed from tetra- ‘four’ and peza ‘foot’ (a relative of English foot).

The Greek mathematician Euclid used trapézion for a ‘table’-shaped geometrical figure, a quadrilateral. The application to the piece of gymnastic equipment, which evolved in French, alludes to the quadrilateral shape formed by the trapeze’s ropes and crossbar and the roof or other support it hangs from.
=> foot, quadruped
A-frame: type of framework shaped like the letter "A," 1909; as a type of building construction from 1932.
almond (n.): c. 1300, from Old French almande, amande, from Vulgar Latin *amendla, *amandula, from Latin amygdala (plural), from Greek amygdalos "an almond tree," which is of unknown origin, perhaps a Semitic word. Altered in Medieval Latin by influence of amandus "loveable," and acquiring in French an excrescent -l- perhaps from Spanish almendra "almond," which got it via confusion with the Arabic definite article al-, which formed the beginnings of many Spanish words. Applied to eyes shaped like almonds, especially of certain Asiatic peoples, from 1870.
annular (adj.): "ring-shaped," 1570s, from French annulaire (16c.) or directly from Latin annularis "pertaining to a ring," from annulus, diminutive of anus "ring" (see anus). An annular eclipse (1727) is one in which the dark body of the moon is smaller than the disk of the sun, so that at the height of it the sun appears as a ring of light. Related: Annularity.
Argyle (n.): "diamond-shaped pattern of two or more colors in fabric," said to be so called from similarity to tartans worn by Campbell clan of Argyll, Scotland. The place name is literally "land of the Gaels," from Old Irish airer "country." Argyle socks is from 1935.
astroid (adj.): "star-shaped," 1897, from Greek astroeides, from astron "star" (see astro-) + -oeides (see -oid).
bacteria (n.): 1847, plural of Modern Latin bacterium, from Greek bakterion "small staff," diminutive of baktron "stick, rod," from PIE *bak- "staff used for support" (also source of Latin baculum "rod, walking stick"). So called because the first ones observed were rod-shaped. Introduced as a scientific word 1838 by German naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795-1876).
bangle (n.): "ring-shaped bracelet," 1787, from Hindi bangri "colored glass bracelet or anklet."
blockhead (n.): also block-head, "stupid person," 1540s (implied in blockheaded), from block (n.) + head (n.); probably originally an image of the head-shaped oaken block used by hat-makers, though the insulting sense is the older one.
bulbous (adj.): 1570s, "pertaining to a bulb," from Latin bulbosus, from bulbus (see bulb). Meaning "bulb-shaped" is recorded from 1783. Related: Bulbously; bulbousness.
bust (n.1): 1690s, "sculpture of upper torso and head," from French buste (16c.), from Italian busto "upper body," from Latin bustum "funeral monument, tomb," originally "funeral pyre, place where corpses are burned," perhaps shortened from ambustum, neuter of ambustus "burned around," past participle of amburere "burn around, scorch," from ambi- "around" + urere "to burn." Or perhaps from Old Latin boro, the early form of classical Latin uro "to burn." Sense development in Italian is probably from Etruscan custom of keeping dead person's ashes in an urn shaped like the person when alive. Meaning "bosom" is by 1884.
calumet (n.): 1660s, from Canadian French calumet, from Norman French calumet "pipe" (Old French chalemel, 12c., Modern French chalumeau), from Latin calamellus, diminutive of calamus "reed; something made of reed or shaped like a reed" (see shawm).
cap (n.): late Old English cæppe "hood, head-covering, cape," from Late Latin cappa "a cape, hooded cloak" (source of Spanish capa, Old North French cape, French chape), possibly a shortened from capitulare "headdress," from Latin caput "head" (see head (n.)).

Meaning "women's head covering" is early 13c. in English; extended to men late 14c. Figurative thinking cap is from 1839 (considering cap is 1650s). Of cap-like coverings on the ends of anything (such as hub-cap) from mid-15c. Meaning "contraceptive device" is first recorded 1916. That of "cap-shaped piece of copper lined with gunpowder and used to ignite a firearm" is c. 1826; extended to paper version used in toy pistols, 1872 (cap-pistol is from 1879).

The Late Latin word apparently originally meant "a woman's head-covering," but the sense was transferred to "hood of a cloak," then to "cloak" itself, though the various senses co-existed. Old English took in two forms of the Late Latin word, one meaning "head-covering," the other "ecclesiastical dress" (see cape (n.1)). In most Romance languages, a diminutive of Late Latin cappa has become the usual word for "head-covering" (such as French chapeau).
capitate (adj.): "head-shaped," 1660s, from Latin capitatus "headed," from caput "head" (see capitulum).
chi (n.): 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet, representing a -kh- sound (see ch). The letter is shaped like an X, and so the Greek letter name was used figuratively to signify such a shape or arrangement (as in khiasma "two things placed crosswise;" khiastos "arranged diagonally; marked with an X;" khiazein "to mark with an 'X', to write the letter 'X'"). Some dialects used chi to represent the -ks- sound properly belonging to xi; Latin picked this up and the sound value of chi in Latin-derived alphabets is now that of English X.
clever (adj.): 1580s, "handy, dexterous," apparently from East Anglian dialectal cliver "expert at seizing," perhaps from East Frisian klüfer "skillful," or Norwegian dialectic klover "ready, skillful," and perhaps influenced by Old English clifer "claw, hand" (early usages seem to refer to dexterity). Or perhaps akin to Old Norse kleyfr "easy to split" and from a root related to cleave "to split." Extension to intellect is first recorded 1704.
This is a low word, scarcely ever used but in burlesque or conversation; and applied to any thing a man likes, without a settled meaning. [Johnson, 1755]
The meaning has narrowed since, but clever also often in old use and dialect meant "well-shaped, attractive-looking" and in 19c. American English sometimes "good-natured, agreeable." Related: Cleverly; cleverness.
clevis (n.): "U-shaped iron bar with holes for a bolt or pin, used as a fastener," 1590s, of unknown origin, perhaps from the root of cleave (v.2). Also uncertain is whether it is originally a plural or a singular.
clock (n.2): "ornament pattern on a stocking," 1520s, probably identical with clock (n.1) in its older sense and meaning "bell-shaped ornament."
clubbed (adj.): late 14c., "shaped like a club," from club (n.). Specifically of defects of the foot by c. 1500; meaning "formed into a club" is from 1620s.
cocci (n.): spherical-shaped bacteria, plural of Latin coccus, from Greek kokkos "berry" (see cocco-).
cocco-: word-forming element meaning "berry, seed," or something shaped like them, from Latinized form of Greek kokkos "a grain, a seed," especially "kermes-berry, gall of the kermes oak" (actually an insect), which yields scarlet dye, a word of unknown origin, perhaps from a non-Greek source.
coin (n.): c. 1300, "a wedge," from Old French coing (12c.) "a wedge; stamp; piece of money; corner, angle," from Latin cuneus "a wedge." The die for stamping metal was wedge-shaped, and the English word came to mean "thing stamped, a piece of money" by late 14c. (a sense that already had developed in French). Compare quoin, which split off from this word 16c. Modern French coin is "corner, angle, nook." Coins were first struck in western Asia Minor in 7c. B.C.E.; Greek tradition and Herodotus credit the Lydians with being first to make and use coins of silver and gold.