英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

crocodile: crocodile: [13] The crocodile gets its name from its habit of basking in the sun on sandbanks or on the shores of rivers. The word means literally ‘pebble-worm’, and it was coined in Greek from the nouns krókē ‘pebbles’ and drilos ‘worm’. The resulting Greek compound *krokódrīlos has never actually been found, for it lost its second r, giving krokódīlos, and this r reappeared and disappeared capriciously during the word’s journey through Latin and Old French to English. Middle English had it – the 13th century form was cokodrille – but in the 16th century the modern r-less form took over, based on Latin crocodīlus.
ditch: ditch: [OE] Like its close relative dyke [13], ditch probably comes ultimately from a long-lost language once spoken on the shores of the Baltic. Its source-word seems to have represented an all-embracing notion of ‘excavation’, including not just the hole dug but also the mound formed from the excavated earth (which perhaps supports the suggestion that dig belongs to the same word-family). This dichotomy of sense is preserved in dyke, whose original meaning, from Old Norse dík, was ‘ditch’, but which came in the 15th century to denote ‘embankment’ (probably under the influence of Middle Dutch dijc ‘dam’).
=> dig, dyke
beach (n.): 1530s, "loose, water-worn pebbles of the seashore," probably from Old English bæce, bece "stream," from Proto-Germanic *bakiz. Extended to loose, pebbly shores (1590s), and in dialect around Sussex and Kent beach still has the meaning "pebbles worn by the waves." French grève shows the same evolution. Beach ball first recorded 1940; beach bum first recorded 1950.
Budapest: Hungarian capital, formed 1872 from merger of two cities on opposite shores of the Danube, Buda (probably from a word originally meaning "water") + Pest, a Hungarian word meaning "furnace, oven, cove," also in Slavic (compare Russian pech'). Compare Ofen, literally "oven," the old German name for the place.
Caspian: inland sea of central Asia, 1580s, from Latin Caspius, from Greek Kaspios, named for native people who lived on its shores (but who were said to be originally from the Caucasus), Latin Caspii, from a native self-designation, perhaps literally "white."
godsend (n.): "unlooked-for acquisition or good fortune," 1812, earlier "a shipwreck" (from the perspective of people living along the coast), by 1806, from Middle English Godes sonde (c. 1200) "God's messenger; what God sends, gift from God, happening caused by God," from God + Middle English sonde "that which is sent, message," from Old English sand, from sendan (see send (v.)).
The common people in Cornwall call, as impiously as inhumanely, a shipwreck on their shores, "a Godsend." [Rev. William Lisle Bowles, footnote in "The Works of Alexander Pope," London, 1806]
hoot (v.): "to call or shout in disapproval or scorn," c. 1600, probably related to or a variant of Middle English houten, huten "to shout, call out" (c. 1200), probably ultimately imitative. First used of bird cries, especially that of the owl, mid-15c. Related: Hooted; hooting. As a noun from mid-15c. Meaning "a laugh, something funny" is first recorded 1942. Slang sense of "smallest amount or particle" (the hoot you don't give when you don't care) is from 1891.
"A dod blasted ole fool!" answered the captain, who, till now, had been merely an amused on-looker. "Ye know all this rumpus wont do nobuddy a hoot o' good--not a hoot." ["Along Traverse Shores," Traverse City, Michigan, 1891]
Hooter in the same sense is from 1839.
HOOTER. Probably a corruption of iota. Common in New York in such phrases as "I don't care a hooter for him." "This note ain't worth a hooter." [John Russell Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," 1877]
Ojibwa: Algonquian people of North America living along the shores of Lake Superior, 1700, from Ojibwa O'chepe'wag "plaited shoes," in reference to their puckered moccasins, which were unlike those of neighboring tribes. The older form in English is Chippewa, which is usually retained in U.S., but since c. 1850 Canadian English has taken up the more phonetically correct Ojibwa, and as a result the two forms of the word have begun to be used in reference to slightly differing groups in the two countries. Some modern Chippewas prefer anishinaabe, which means "original people."
Red Sea (n.): the Greek thalassa erythra; the reason for the name is unknown; speculation has traced it to: 1. algae in coastal waters; 2. sandstone rock formations on the shores; 3. a tribal name; 4. ancient association of "red" with "south" (as "black" with "north").
Phoenicia: "An ancient country on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, corresponding to modern Lebanon and the coastal plains of Syria. It consisted of a number of city states, including Tyre and Sidon, and was a flourishing centre of Mediterranean trade and colonization during the early part of the 1st millennium bc", From Latin, from Greek Phoinikē.