protozoayoudaoicibaDictYouDict[protozoa 词源字典]
protozoa: [19] Greek prótos meant ‘first’ (like English first and Latin prīmus ‘first’ it goes back ultimately to Indo-European *pro ‘before, in front’). It forms the basis of a wide range of English words, both original Greek compounds and post-classical formations, among them protagonist [17] (etymologically the ‘first or leading actor’), protein, protocol, proton [20], protoplasm [19], and prototype [17]. Protozoa itself was coined in modern Latin by the zoologist Goldfuss in 1818 from proto- and Greek zóia ‘animals’ (source of English zoo), the notion being that the protozoa are the simplest or most primitive forms of life.
=> zoo[protozoa etymology, protozoa origin, 英语词源]
element (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
c. 1300, "earth, air, fire, or water; one of the four things regarded by the ancients as the constituents of all things," from Old French element (10c.), from Latin elementem "rudiment, first principle, matter in its most basic form" (translating Greek stoikheion), origin and original sense unknown. Meaning "simplest component of a complex substance" is late 14c. Modern sense in chemistry is from 1813, but is not essentially different from the ancient one. Meaning "proper or natural environment of anything" is from 1590s, from the old notion that each class of living beings had its natural abode in one of the four elements. Elements "atmospheric force" is 1550s.
grubelsucht (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1876, from German Grübelsucht, psychiatric term for "a form of obsession in which even the simplest facts are compulsively queried" [OED], from grübeln "to brood" (see grub (v.)) + sucht "mania."
kenning (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English cenning "procreation; declaration in court," present participle of ken (v.). From early 14c. in senses "sign, token; teaching, instruction;" c. 1400 as "mental cognition." From 1871 as "periphrastic expression in early Germanic poetry;" in this sense it probably is from a modern learned use of Old Norse cognate verb kenna "to know, to recognize, to feel or perceive; to call, to name (in a formal poetic metaphor)."
In the whole poem of Beowulf there are scarcely half a dozen of them [similes], and these of the simplest character, such as comparing a ship to a bird. Indeed, such a simple comparison as this is almost equivalent to the more usual "kenning" (as it is called in Icelandic), such as "brimfugol," where, instead of comparing the ship to a bird, the poet simply calls it a sea-bird, preferring the direct assertion to the indirect comparison. [Henry Sweet, "Sketches of the History of Anglo-Saxon Poetry," London, 1871]