英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

brown [brown 词源字典]: brown: [OE] In Old English, brown meant, rather vaguely, ‘dark’; it does not seem to have become a definite colour word until the 13th century. It comes from West and North Germanic *brūnaz, which probably goes back ultimately to the same Indo-European source (*bheros) as bear, etymologically the ‘brown [that is, dark] animal’. An additional meaning of brown in Old and Middle English, shared also by related words such as Old High German brūn, was ‘shining, glistening’, particularly as applied to weapons (it survives in fossilized form in the old ballad Cospatrick, recorded in 1802: ‘my bonny brown sword’); Old French took it over when it borrowed brun from Germanic, and it is the basis of the verb burnir ‘polish’, from which English gets burnish [14].

Another contribution made by French brun to English is the feminine diminutive form brunette [17]. An earlier Old French variant burnete had previously been borrowed by English in the 12th century as burnet, and since the 14th century has been applied to a genus of plants of the rose family. The term burnet moth is first recorded in 1842.
=> bear, brunette, burnish[brown etymology, brown origin, 英语词源]
bulwark: bulwark: [15] Bulwark comes from Middle High German bolwerc ‘fortification’, a compound formed from bole ‘plank’ (the same word as English bole ‘tree trunk’) and werc, equivalent to English work. It thus originally meant ‘rampart constructed out of planks or tree trunks’. The word was shared by other Germanic languages, including Swedish bolverk, and French borrowed it as boullewerc, which has since become boulevard.
=> bole, boulevard, work
camel: camel: [OE] Naturally enough, camel is of Semitic origin: Hebrew has gāmāl, for example, and Arabic jamal. It was a relative of these that was the source of Greek kámēlos, which passed via Latin camēlus into English as early as the mid 10th century. (It replaced a previous Old English olfend, a word – shared by other early Germanic languages – apparently based on the misconception that a camel was an elephant.)
common: common: [13] Common comes ultimately from an Indo-European base *moi-, *mei-, signifying ‘change, exchange’, which also produced English immune, mutate, mutual, and remunerate. A derivative of this base, *moin-, *mein- seems to have joined up with the Indo- European collective *kom- to produce *komoin-, *komein- ‘shared by all’.

In Germanic this became *gamainiz, source of English mean ‘despicable’, while in Latin it gave commūnis, source, via Old French comun, of English common. Both the Latin and French forms have given English a number of derivatives: from the former we have community [14] (Latin commūnitātis), communion [14] (Latin commūniō), and communicate [16] (Latin commūnicāre), while the latter has yielded commune [13] (Old French comuner) and communism [19] (French communisme, coined around 1840).
=> communicate, communism, community, immune, mean, mutual, mutate, remunerate
craft: craft: [OE] The original notion contained in the word craft is that of ‘strength’ (that is the meaning of its relatives in other Germanic languages, such as German and Swedish kraft). Old English croeft had that sense too (it had largely died out by the 16th century), but it had also developed some other meanings, which are not shared by its Germanic cognates: ‘skill’, for example (in a bad as well as a good sense, whence crafty) and ‘trade’ or ‘profession’.

Much later in origin, however (17th-century in fact), is the sense ‘ship’. It is not clear how this developed, but it may have been a shortening of some such expression as ‘vessel of the sailor’s craft’ (that is, ‘trade’). The word’s Germanic stem was *krab- or *kraf-, which some have seen also as the source of crave [OE].
=> crave
crowd: crowd: [OE] The notion underlying crowd is of ‘pushing’ or ‘pressing’ (a semantic element shared by throng and of course by the now obsolete use of press for ‘crowd’, and echoed in such current expressions as ‘there’s quite a crush in here’). The Old English verb crūdan meant simply ‘press’, and of its relatives Middle Dutch crūden meant ‘press, push’ and Middle High German kroten meant ‘oppress’. Old English also had a noun croda ‘crowd’, but this does not seem to be the direct ancestor of the modern English noun, which does not appear until as late as the 16th century, as a derivative of the verb.
dear: dear: [OE] Dear is one of the English language’s more semantically stable words. By the 11th century it had already developed its two major present-day senses, ‘much-loved’ and ‘expensive’, which are shared by its Germanic relative, German teuer (Dutch has differentiated dier ‘much loved’ from duur ‘expensive’). All these words go back to a prehistoric West and North Germanic *deurjaz, whose ultimate origin is not known.

In the 13th century an abstract noun, dearth, was derived from the adjective. It seems likely that this originally meant ‘expensiveness’ (although instances of this sense, which has since disappeared, are not recorded before the late 15th century). This developed to ‘period when food is expensive, because scarce’, and eventually to ‘scarcity’ generally.
=> dearth
drop: drop: [OE] Drop, droop, and drip are closely related. Droop [13] was borrowed from Old Norse drūpa, which came from a Germanic base *drūp-. A variant of this, *drup-, produced Middle Danish drippe, the probable source of English drip [15], and a further variant, *drop-, lies behind Old English dropa, ancestor of modern English drop.

All three go back ultimately to a prehistoric Indo-European *dhreub-, source of Irish drucht ‘dew’. The English noun originally meant ‘globule of liquid’, and its related verb ‘fall in drops’. The main modern transitive sense, ‘allow to fall’, developed in the 14th century, giving English a single word for the concept of ‘letting fall’ not shared by, for example, French and German, which have to use phrases to express it: respectively, laisser tomber and fallen lassen.
=> drip, droop
flatter: flatter: [13] Etymologically, flatter means ‘smooth down or caress with the flat of the hand’. It comes from Old French flatter, in which the original literal notion of ‘caressing’ had already passed into the figurative ‘buttering up’. The Old French verb in turn was based on Frankish *flat, the ‘flat or palm of someone’s hand’, a word which shared a common source with English flat.
=> flat
give: give: [OE] Give is part of a widespread Germanic family of verbs, including also German geben, Dutch geven, Swedish giva, and Danish give, not to mention Gothic giban. They all come from a prehistoric Germanic *geban, a verb of uncertain ancestry (it has been suggested that it was related to Latin habēre ‘have’, their opposite meaning being accounted for by a shared notion of ‘reaching out the hands’ – either to ‘take and have’ or to ‘give’).
glad: glad: [OE] The original meaning of Old English glæd was ‘bright, shining’. It went back to a prehistoric Germanic *glathaz, which was related to Latin glaber ‘smooth, bald’ (source of English glabrous [17] and Old Slavic gladuku ‘smooth’). ‘Happy’ is a secondary semantic development, which evidently took place before the various Germanic dialects went their own way, for it is shared by Swedish and Danish glad (the sense ‘smooth’, also an extension of ‘bright, shining’, is preserved in German glatt).
=> glabrous
hunger: hunger: [OE] Hunger is a widespread word in the Germanic languages, shared by German, Swedish, and Danish as well as English (Dutch spells it honger), but it is not represented in any of the other Indo-European languages. Indeed, no related forms have been identified for certain, although Greek kégkein ‘be hungry’ and Sanskrit kákat ‘be thirsty’ are possibilities.
idle: idle: [OE] ‘Lazy’ is only a secondary meaning of idle. It originally meant ‘useless, worthless’ (as in ‘idle threats’), and the sense ‘lazy’ did not develop until the 13th century (the Old English words for ‘lazy’ were slow and slack). Idle is shared by other West Germanic languages, and its relatives (German eitel ‘vain, futile’ and Dutch ijdel ‘vain, useless, conceited’) point up its original English meaning, but it is not known what its ultimate origins are.
indent: indent: Etymologically, English has two separate words indent, although they have converged to a considerable extent over the centuries (particularly in the virtually shared derivative indentation). The one meaning ‘(make) a hole or depression’ [14] is simply a derivative of dent, which itself probably originated as a variant of dint. Indent ‘make notches in’ [14], however, owes its origin to Latin dēns ‘tooth’.

This formed the basis of an Anglo-Latin verb indentāre, which denoted the drawing up of a contract between two parties on two identical documents, which were cut along a matching line of notches or ‘teeth’ which could subsequently be rejoined to prove their authenticity. A particular use of such contracts was between master craftsmen and their trainees, who hence became known as indentured apprentices.
=> dent, dint; dentist
knee: knee: [OE] The majority of modern European words for ‘knee’ go back to a common Indo- European ancestor which probably originally signified ‘bend’. This was *g(e)neu or *goneu, which lies behind Latin genu ‘knee’ (source of French genou and Italian ginocchio, and also of English genuine) and may well be connected with Greek gōníā ‘angle’, from which English gets diagonal.

It passed into Germanic as *knewam, which over the centuries has diversified into German and Dutch knie, Swedish knä, Danish knoe, and English knee. The derivative kneel [OE] was formed before the Anglo-Saxons reached Britain, and is shared by Dutch (knielen).
=> genuine, kneel
lime: lime: English has three distinct words lime, of which by far the oldest is lime the ‘chalky substance’ [OE]. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *līm- (shared also by German leim, Dutch lijm, and Swedish limma), a variant of which also produced English loam [OE]. Lime the ‘citrus fruit’ [17] comes via French lime and Provençal limo from Arabic līmah ‘citrus fruit’, which was also the source of English lemon [14].

And lime the ‘tree’ [17] is an alteration of an earlier line, a variant of lind ‘lime tree’ (the closely related linden was acquired in the 16th century, from German lindenbaum or early modern Dutch lindenboom ‘lime tree’).
=> loam; lemon; linden
linen: linen: [OE] The word for ‘flax’ is an ancient one, shared by numerous Indo-European languages: Greek līnon, Latin līnum (source of English line), and prehistoric West Germanic *līnam among them. The latter passed into Old English as līn, but now survives only in the compound linseed (literally ‘flax-seed’). Its adjectival derivative, however, *līnīn, lives on in the form linen, nowadays used as a noun meaning ‘cloth made from flax’.

The Latin word, or its French descendants lin or linge, have contributed several other derivatives to English, including crinoline, lingerie [19] (literally ‘linen garments’), linnet [16] (etymologically a ‘flaxeating bird’), linoleum [19], and lint [14].
=> crinoline, line, lingerie, linnet, linoleum, lint
meagre: meagre: [14] Meagre originally meant literally ‘thin’ (it goes back via Anglo-Norman megre and Old French maigre to Latin macer ‘thin’, source also of English emaciate [17]). Not until the 16th century did the modern figurative sense ‘scanty’ begin to emerge. (Its distant Indo- European ancestor, incidentally, *makró-, also produced a parallel Germanic form mager ‘thin’, shared by German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish.)
=> emaciate
mean: mean: English has three distinct words mean. The oldest, ‘intend’ [OE], goes back via a prehistoric West Germanic *mainjan to the Indo-European base *men- ‘think’ (source also of English memory, mention, mind, etc). The adjective ‘petty, stingy’ [12] originally meant ‘common, shared by all’. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic *gamainiz (source also of German gemein ‘common, shared’), which was formed from the collective prefix *ga- and *mainiz.

This went back to an Indo-European base *moi-, *mei- ‘change, exchange’, which also lies behind English mad, moult, mutate, mutual, and the second syllable of common. Mean’s semantic history can be traced from ‘common to all’ via ‘inferior’ and ‘low, ignoble’ to ‘petty’. The adjective ‘intermediate, average’ [14] came via Anglo-Norman meen and Old French meien from Latin mediānus (source of English median), a derivative of medius ‘middle’ (source of English medium).

It forms the basis of the plural noun means ‘method’ [14], and of the compound adverb meanwhile [15].
=> memory, mention, mind; common, mad, moult, mutate, mutual; median, medium
morganatic: morganatic: [18] A morganatic marriage is one between people of different social status, in which the rank and entitlements of the higherstatus partner are not shared by the lower or their offspring. The word morganatic is a survival of an ancient Germanic marriage custom. On the morning after the wedding night, after the marriage had been consummated, the husband gave the wife a symbolic gift, which removed any further legal claim the wife or their children might have on his possessions.

The term for this useful gift was *morgangeba, a compound formed from *morgan (ancestor of English morning) and *geba (a noun formed from the same base as produced English give). The word was adopted into medieval Latin as morganaticus, from which (via either French or German) English got morganatic.
=> morning, give
nest: nest: [OE] Etymologically, a nest is a place for ‘sitting down’. It is a very ancient word, and traces its history all the way back to Indo- European *nizdo-, a compound formed from *ni ‘down’ (source of English beneath and nether) and *sed- (ancestor of English sit). From it came English nest (a word shared by German and Dutch), and also Latin nīdus ‘nest’, source of Old French niche ‘nest’ – whence English niche [17]. Nestle [OE] was derived from nest.
=> beneath, nestle, nether, sit
oak: oak: [OE] Oak is an ancient Germanic tree-name, shared by German (eiche), Dutch (eik), Swedish (ek), and Danish (eg). These point back to a common Germanic ancestor *aiks. There is no conclusive evidence of any related forms outside Germanic, however, although similarities have been noted with Greek aigílops, a term for a sort of oak tree, and Latin aesculus ‘oak sacred to Jupiter’.

Despite its passing similarity, acorn is not etymologically related. The oak was one of the commonest trees in the ancient European forests, and many terms that started out as names for it became generalized to simply ‘tree’: English tree, for instance, comes from an Indo-European ancestor that probably originally meant ‘oak’.
ought: ought: [OE] Ought began life as the past tense of owe, but the two have diverged widely over the centuries. The Old English ancestor of owe was āgan, and its past form was āhte. This originally shared all the meanings of its parent verb, of course, and continued to do so well into the 17th century (‘He said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound’, Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV 1596). Indeed, it survived dialectally until comparatively recently. But steadily since the 1600s its role as a quasi-modal auxiliary verb, denoting ‘obligation’, has come to the fore.
=> owe
part: part: [13] Latin pars, a possible relative of parāre ‘make ready’ (source of English prepare), had a wide range of meanings – ‘piece’, ‘side’, ‘share’, etc – many of them shared by its English descendant part. The word was originally acquired in the late Old English period, but does not seem to have survived, and as we now have it was reborrowed via Old French part in the 13th century.

Other English descendants of pars include parcel, parse [16] (based on the notion of ‘parts’ of speech), partake [16] (a backformation from partaker [14], itself created from part and taker), partial [15], participate, participle, particle, particular, partisan, partition, partner, and party.
=> parcel, parse, partial, particle, partisan, partner, party
peculiar: peculiar: [15] The etymological notion underlying peculiar is of ‘not being shared with others’, of being ‘one’s own alone’. It was borrowed from Latin pecūliāris ‘of private property’, a derivative of pecūlium ‘private property’, which in turn was based on pecus ‘cattle’, hence ‘wealth’ (source also of English pecuniary [16]). (A parallel semantic progression from ‘cattle’ to ‘property’ is shown in English fee.) The development of the adjective’s meaning from ‘belonging to oneself alone’ through ‘individual’ to ‘extraordinary, strange’ took place in Latin. Peculate ‘pilfer, embezzle’ [18] also comes ultimately from Latin pecūlium.
=> pecuniary
rain: rain: [OE] Rain is an exclusively Germanic word, not shared by any other language group in the Indo-European family. Its prehistoric ancestor *reg- has evolved into German and Dutch regen, Swedish and Danish regn, and English rain. There may be some connection with Old Norse rakr ‘wet’.
ram: ram: [OE] Ram is a general West Germanic word for ‘male sheep’, now shared only by Dutch (although German has the derivative ramme ‘rammer’). It may be related to Old Norse ramr ‘strong’, the allusion being to the ram’s strength in butting. This is reflected in the word’s metaphorical applications: it was being used in Old English for a ‘battering-ram’, and by the 14th century the verb ram had emerged.

Another relative is the verb ramble [17], which etymologically denotes ‘wander around like a randy ram, looking for ewes to copulate with’. It was borrowed from Middle Dutch rammelen, a derivative of rammen ‘copulate with’, which is connected with ram.
=> ramble
sand: sand: [OE] Sand is a widespread Germanic word, shared by German, Swedish, and Danish (Dutch has zand). Its prehistoric source was *sandam, which went back to an Indo-European *samdam. This also produced Latin sabulum ‘sand’, which evolved into French sable and Italian sabbia ‘sand’. It probably came ultimately from a base which signified ‘grind, crush’.
scofflaw: scofflaw: [20] Aside from proprietary names and some scientific terms, it is rare for words that are pure human inventions (rather than naturally evolved forms) to make a permanent place for themselves in the English language, but scofflaw is a case in point. In the US in the early 1920s, in the middle of the Prohibition years, one Delcevare King of Quincy, Massachusetts offered a prize of $200 for a word to denote someone who defied the law and consumed alcohol.

Over 25,000 suggestions were received from America and around the world. In January 1924 King announced his chosen winner: scofflaw, a simple combination of scoff [14] (probably of Scandinavian origin) and law. Two people had submitted it (Henry Irving Dale and Kate L. Butler), and they shared the prize. Whether because or in spite of its homespun transparency, the word caught on, and survives in America to this day, albeit somewhat broadened out in meaning: specific reference to illicit drinkers is no longer in much demand, but it is now used for someone who flouts any law.
shaft: shaft: [OE] Shaft is a general Germanic word, shared by German and Dutch schaft and Swedish and Danish skaft. These point back to a common prehistoric ancestor *skaftaz, which may have been descended from the Indo-European base *scap- ‘support’ (source of English sceptre [13]).
=> sceptre
shot: shot: [OE] Shot goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *skutaz, which was derived from the same base that produced English shoot. It used to mean ‘payment’ as well as ‘act of shooting’, a sense shared by its Old Norse relative skot, which provided English with the scot of scotfree [16] (etymologically ‘without having to pay’).
=> scot-free, shoot
spade: spade: English has two words spade, but they are ultimately related. Spade for digging [OE] comes from a Low German source, which also produced Dutch spade. This went back to, or shared a common source with, Greek spáthē ‘broad blade’, which was borrowed into Latin as spatha ‘broad flat instrument’ (source of the English botanical term spathe [18]).

This in turn passed into Italian as spada ‘broad sword’, whose plural spade gave English the playingcard symbol spade [16]. The corresponding French term is épée ‘sword’, adopted by English as a fencing term in the 19th century; and its Old French precursor espee is the ultimate source of English spay [15]. The diminutive form of Latin spatha was spathula, from which English gets spatula [16].
=> spathe, spatula, spay, spoon
thousand: thousand: [OE] Thousand is a compound noun of some antiquity, which seems to mean etymologically ‘several hundreds’. Its first element probably comes from a base denoting ‘increase’ or ‘multiplicity’, which also produced Latin tumēre ‘swell’ (source of English tumour) and Sanskrit tuvi ‘much’; its second element is the same as the first element of English hundred. The combination resulted in a prehistoric Germanic *thusundi, which evolved into German tausend, Dutch duizend, Swedish tusen, Danish tusind, and English thousand. It is shared by the Slavic languages – Russian, for instance, has tysjacha.
=> hundred, thigh, thumb, tumour
wild: wild: [OE] Wild is a general Germanic word, shared by German and Dutch (wild) and Swedish and Danish (vild). All go back to a prehistoric ancestor *wilthijaz, which in turn was probably descended from Indo-European *ghwelt- (source of Welsh gwyllt ‘wild’). The derivative wilderness [OE] etymologically denotes the ‘condition of being a wild animal’.

It originated as an abstract noun formed from Old English wild dēor ‘wild animal’. But by the time it appears in texts, the modern sense ‘wild land’ is complete. The noun is thought to have been the source of the now defunct verb wilder, which probably served as the basis of bewilder [17]. Wildebeest [19] was acquired from Afrikaans.
=> bewilder, wilderness
chum (n.1): "friend," 1680s, originally university slang for "roommate," from alternative spelling of cham, short for chamber(mate); typical of the late-17c. fondness for clipped words. Among derived forms used 19c. were chumship; chummery "shared bachelor quarters," chummage "system of quartering more than one to a room."
coeno-: word-forming element meaning "common," Latinized from Greek koinos "common, public, shared, general, ordinary," from PIE *kom "beside, near, by, with" (see com-).
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.
commonality (n.): late 14c., "a community," from common (adj.), as if from Latin *communalitas. A respelling of commonalty (late 13c.). Meaning "the common people" is attested from 1580s; that of "state or quality of being shared" is from 1954.
community (n.): late 14c., from Old French comunité "community, commonness, everybody" (Modern French communauté), from Latin communitatem (nominative communitas) "community, society, fellowship, friendly intercourse; courtesy, condescension, affability," from communis "common, public, general, shared by all or many," (see common (adj.)). Latin communitatem "was merely a noun of quality ... meaning 'fellowship, community of relations or feelings,' but in med.L. it was, like universitas, used concretely in the sense of 'a body of fellows or fellow-townsmen' " [OED].

An Old English word for "community" was gemænscipe "community, fellowship, union, common ownership," from mæne "common, public, general," probably composed from the same PIE roots as communis. Community service as a criminal sentence is recorded from 1972, American English. Community college is recorded from 1959.
craze (n.): late 15c., "break down in health," from craze (v.) in its Middle English sense; this led to a noun sense of "mental breakdown," and by 1813 to the extension to "mania, fad," or, as The Century Dictionary (1902) defines it, "An unreasoning or capricious liking or affectation of liking, more or less sudden and temporary, and usually shared by a number of persons, especially in society, for something particular, uncommon, peculiar, or curious ...."
matriculate (v.): 1570s, "to admit a student to a college by enrolling his name on the register," from Late Latin matriculatus, past participle of matriculare "to register," from Latin matricula "public register," diminutive of matrix (genitive matricis) "list, roll," also "sources, womb" (see matrix).

The connection of senses in the Latin word seems to be via confusion of Greek metra "womb" (from meter "mother;" see mother (n.1)) and an identical but different Greek word metra meaning "register, lot" (see meter (n.2)). Evidently Latin matrix was used to translate both, though it originally shared meaning with only one. Related: Matriculated; matriculating.
mean (adj.1): "low-quality," c. 1200, "shared by all," from imene, from Old English gemæne "common, public, general, universal, shared by all," from Proto-Germanic *ga-mainiz "possessed jointly" (cognates: Old Frisian mene, Old Saxon gimeni, Middle Low German gemeine, Middle Dutch gemene, Dutch gemeen, German gemein, Gothic gamains "common"), from PIE *ko-moin-i- "held in common," a compound adjective formed from collective prefix *ko- "together" (Proto-Germanic *ga-) + *moi-n-, suffixed form of PIE root *mei- (1) "to change, exchange" (see mutable). Compare second element in common (adj.), a word with a sense evolution parallel to that of this word.

Of things, "inferior, second-rate," from late 14c. (a secondary sense in Old English was "false, wicked"). Notion of "so-so, mediocre" led to confusion with mean (n.). Meaning "inferior in rank or status" (of persons) emerged early 14c.; that of "ordinary" from late 14c.; that of "stingy, nasty" first recorded 1660s; weaker sense of "disobliging, pettily offensive" is from 1839, originally American English slang. Inverted sense of "remarkably good" (i.e. plays a mean saxophone) first recorded c. 1900, perhaps from phrase no mean _______ "not inferior" (1590s, also, "not average," reflecting further confusion with mean (n.)).
ought (v.): Old English ahte "owned, possessed," past tense of agan "to own, possess, owe" (see owe). As a past tense of owe, it shared in that word's evolution and meant at times in Middle English "possessed" and "under obligation to pay." It has been detached from owe since 17c., though he aught me ten pounds is recorded as active in East Anglian dialect from c. 1825. As an auxiliary verb expressing duty or obligation (late 12c., the main modern use), it represents the past subjunctive.
party (n.): late 13c., "part, portion, side," from Old French partie "side, part; portion, share; separation, division" (12c.), literally "that which is divided," noun use of fem. past participle of partir "to divide" (see part (v.)). Political sense of "side in a contest or dispute" evolved by 1300; meaning "a person" is from mid-15c. Sense of "gathering for social pleasure" is first found 1716, from general sense of persons gathered together (originally for some specific purpose, such as dinner party, hunting party). Phrase the party is over is from 1937; party line is first recorded 1834 in the sense of "policy adopted by a political party," 1893 in the sense of "telephone line shared by two or more subscribers." Party pooper is from 1951, American English.
pie (n.1): "pastry," mid-14c. (probably older; piehus "bakery" is attested from late 12c.), from Medieval Latin pie "meat or fish enclosed in pastry" (c. 1300), perhaps related to Medieval Latin pia "pie, pastry," also possibly connected with pica "magpie" (see pie (n.2)) on notion of the bird's habit of collecting miscellaneous objects. Figurative of "something to be shared out" by 1967.

According to OED, not known outside English, except Gaelic pighe, which is from English. In the Middle Ages, a pie had many ingredients, a pastry but one. Fruit pies began to appear c. 1600. Figurative sense of "something easy" is from 1889. Pie-eyed "drunk" is from 1904. Phrase pie in the sky is 1911, from Joe Hill's Wobbly parody of hymns. Pieman is not attested earlier than the nursery rhyme "Simple Simon" (c. 1820). Pie chart is from 1922.
private (adj.): late 14c., "pertaining or belonging to oneself, not shared, individual; not open to the public;" of a religious rule, "not shared by Christians generally, distinctive; from Latin privatus "set apart, belonging to oneself (not to the state), peculiar, personal," used in contrast to publicus, communis; past participle of privare "to separate, deprive," from privus "one's own, individual," from PIE *prei-wo-, from PIE *prai-, *prei-, from root *per- (1) "forward, through" (see per).

Old English in this sense had syndrig. Private grew popular 17c. as an alternative to common (adj.), which had overtones of condescension. Of persons, "not holding public office," recorded from early 15c. In private "privily" is from 1580s. Related: Privately. Private school is from 1650s. Private parts "the pudenda" is from 1785. Private enterprise first recorded 1797; private property by 1680s; private sector is from 1948. Private eye "private detective" is recorded from 1938, American English.
Q: 16th letter of the classical Roman alphabet, from the Phoenician equivalent of Hebrew koph, qoph, which was used for the more guttural of the two "k" sounds in Semitic.

The letter existed in Greek, but was little used and not alphabetized; the stereotypical connection with -u- began in Latin. Anglo-Saxon scribes adopted the habit at first, but later used spellings with cw- or cu-. The qu- pattern returned to English with the Norman Conquest and had displaced cw- by c. 1300. In some spelling variants of late Middle English, quh- also took work from wh-, especially in Scottish and northern dialects, for example Gavin Douglas, Provost of St. Giles, in his vernacular "Aeneid" of 1513:
Lyk as the rois in June with hir sueit smell
The marygulde or dasy doith excell.
Quhy suld I than, with dull forhede and vane,
With ruide engine and barrand emptive brane,
With bad harsk speche and lewit barbour tong,
Presume to write quhar thi sueit bell is rong,
Or contirfait sa precious wourdis deir?
Scholars use -q- alone to transliterate Semitic koph (as in Quran, Qatar, Iraq ). In Christian theology, Q has been used since 1901 to signify the hypothetical source of passages shared by Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark; in this sense probably it is an abbreviation of German Quelle "source."
set (n.1): "collection of things," mid-15c., from Old French sette "sequence," variant of secte "religious community," from Medieval Latin secta "retinue," from Latin secta "a following" (see sect). "[I]n subsequent developments of meaning influenced by SET v.1 and apprehended as equivalent to 'number set together'" [OED]. The noun set was in Middle English, but only in the sense of "religious sect" (late 14c.), which likely is the direct source of some modern meanings, such as "group of persons with shared status, habits, etc." (1680s).

Meaning "complete collection of pieces" is from 1680s. Meaning "group of pieces musicians perform at a club during 45 minutes" (more or less) is from c. 1925, though it is found in a similar sense in 1580s. Set piece is from 1846 as "grouping of people in a work of visual art;" from 1932 in reference to literary works.
share (v.): 1580s, "to apportion to someone as his share; to apportion out to others; to enjoy or suffer (something) with others," from share (n.1). Meaning "to divide one's own and give part to others" is recorded from 1590s. Meaning "confess one's sins openly" (1932, implied in sharing) is from "the language of Moral Rearmament" [OED]. Related: Shared; sharer; sharing.
shell (n.): Old English sciell, scill, Anglian scell "seashell, eggshell," related to Old English scealu "shell, husk," from Proto-Germanic *skaljo "piece cut off; shell; scale" (cognates: West Frisian skyl "peel, rind," Middle Low German schelle "pod, rind, egg shell," Gothic skalja "tile"), with the shared notion of "covering that splits off," from PIE root *(s)kel- (1) "to cut, cleave" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic skolika "shell," Russian skala "bark, rind;" see scale (n.1)). Italian scaglia "chip" is from Germanic.

Sense of "mere exterior" is from 1650s; that of "hollow framework" is from 1791. Meaning "structure for a band or orchestra" is attested from 1938. Military use (1640s) was first of hand grenades, in reference to the metal case in which the gunpowder and shot were mixed; the notion is of a "hollow object" filled with explosives. Hence shell shock, first recorded 1915. Shell game "a swindle" is from 1890, from a version of three-card monte played with a pea and walnut shells.