英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

buff [buff 词源字典]: buff: [16] Buff originally meant ‘buffalo’; it was presumably an alteration of the French word buffe ‘buffalo’. That sense had died out by the early 18th century, but since then the word has undergone a bizarre series of semantic changes. First, it came to mean ‘leather’, originally from buffalo hides, but later from ox hides. This was commonly used in the 16th and 17th centuries for making military uniforms, so be in buff came to mean ‘be in the army’.

Then in the 17th century the associations of ‘hide’ and ‘skin’ led to the expression in the buff ‘naked’. The colour of buff leather, a sort of dull yellowish-brown, led to the word’s adoption in the 18th century as a colour term. In the 19th century, soft buff or suede leather was used for the small pads or wheels used by silversmiths, watchmakers, etc for polishing: hence the verb buff ‘polish’.

And finally, in the 1820s New York City volunteer firemen were known as ‘buffs’, from the colour of their uniforms; thus anyone who was a volunteer or enthusiastic for something became known as a buff (as in ‘film buff’). The buff of blind-man’s buff is a different word. It meant ‘blow, punch’, and was borrowed in the 15th century from Old French buffe, source also of English buffet ‘blow’ [13].

The term blind-man’s buff is first recorded around 1600, some what later than its now obsolete synonym hoodman blind.
=> buffalo, buffet[buff etymology, buff origin, 英语词源]
eradicate: eradicate: [16] Semantically, eradicate is an analogous formation to uproot. It comes from the past participle of Latin ērādicāre ‘pull out by the roots’, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and rādix ‘root’ (source of English radical and radish and related to English root). In the 16th and 17th centuries it was often used literally (‘oaks eradicated by a prodigious whirlwind’, Thomas Nabbes, Hannibal and Scipio 1637), but since then the metaphorical ‘remove totally’ has taken over.
=> radish, root
fauna: fauna: [18] Fauna was a Roman goddess of the countryside, sister of Faunus (the Roman equivalent of Greek Pan) who was a nature and fertility god worshipped by shepherds, farmers, etc. The Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus applied her name in 1746 to his catalogue of the animals of Sweden, Fauna suecica ‘Swedish Fauna’, and it has been used since then as a collective term for the animal life of a region (one of the earliest records of its use in English is by the naturalist Gilbert White in 1771). (Faunus, source of English faun [14], may be related ultimately to Latin favēre ‘regard favourably’, source of English favour.)
=> faun
grisly: grisly: [OE] Middle English had a verb grise ‘be terrified’, which points back via an unrecorded Old English *grīsan to a West Germanic *grīdenoting ‘fear, terror’, from which grisly would have been formed. Dutch has the parallel formation grijzelijk. In 1900, the Oxford English Dictionary described grisly as ‘now only arch and lit’, but since then its fortunes have recovered strongly, and it is now firmly part of the general language.
hot dog: hot dog: [19] This term for a cooked sausage or frankfurter in a bun has its origins in the mid- 19th-century use of dog as an American slang term for a sausage (perhaps an allusion to the sausage’s often dubious contents). By the 1890s hot dog was Yale University slang for a cooked sausage bought at a fast-food stall, and by 1900 it was in widespread use for the whole deal, bun and all. Since then it has never looked back. (The widely repeated story that the term was invented by the US cartoonist ‘Tad’ Dorgan in the early 1900s is quite untrue.)
robin: robin: [15] Robin was borrowed from the French male first name Robin, a familiar form of Robert, which is first recorded as a bird-name in the 15th century. It originally appeared in English, in the mid-15th century, in the expression robin redbreast, and robin was not used on its own until about a hundred years later. Since then its has gradually ousted the native ruddock (a relative of red) as the standard term for the bird. (The name Robert, incidentally, is of Germanic origin, and means etymologically ‘famebright’.)
yoghurt: yoghurt: [17] It has taken a long time for yoghurt to settle down orthographically, and the process is not yet complete. It was originally acquired (from Turkish yoghurt) in the 1620s as yoghurd, and since then spellings such as yaghourt, yooghort, yughard, yohourth, and yaourt (reflecting the fact that Turkish gh is silent) have been tried. Yoghurt still vies with yogurt.
so long (interj.): parting salutation, 1860, of unknown origin, perhaps from a German idiom (compare German parting salutation adieu so lange, the full sense of which probably is something like "farewell, whilst (we're apart)"); or perhaps from Hebrew shalom (via Yiddish sholom). Some have noted a similarity to Scandinavian leave-taking phrases, such as Norwegian Adjø så lenge, Farvel så lenge, Mor'n så lenge, literally "bye so long, farewell so long, morning so long;" and Swedish Hej så länge "good-bye for now," with så länge "for now" attested since 1850 according to Swedish sources. Most etymology sources seem to lean toward the German origin.

Earlier guesses that it was a sailors' corruption of a South Pacific form of Arabic salaam are not now regarded as convincing. "Dictionary of American Slang" also adds to the list of candidates Irish slán "safe," said to be used as a salutation in parting. The phrase seems to have turned up simultaneously in America, Britain, and perhaps Canada, originally among lower classes. First attested use is in title and text of the last poem in Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" in the 1860 edition.
An unknown sphere, more real than I dream'd, more direct, darts awakening rays about me -- So long!
Remember my words -- I may again return,
I love you -- I depart from materials;
I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.
Whitman's friend and fan William Sloane Kennedy wrote in 1923:
The salutation of parting -- 'So long!' -- was, I believe, until recent years, unintelligible to the majority of persons in America, especially in the interior, and to members of the middle and professional classes. I had never heard of it until I read it in Leaves of Grass, but since then have quite often heard it used by the laboring class and other classes in New England cities. Walt wrote to me, defining 'so long' thus: "A salutation of departure, greatly used among sailors, sports, & prostitutes -- the sense of it is 'Till we meet again,' -- conveying an inference that somehow they will doubtless so meet, sooner or later." ... It is evidently about equivalent to our 'See you later.' The phrase is reported as used by farm laborers near Banff, Scotland. In Canada it is frequently heard; 'and its use is not entirely confined to the vulgar.' It is in common use among the working classes of Liverpool and among sailors at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in Dorsetshire. ... The London Globe suggests that the expression is derived from the Norwegian 'Saa laenge,' a common form of 'farewell,' au revoir. If so, the phrase was picked up from the Norwegians in America, where 'So long' first was heard. The expression is now (1923) often used by the literary and artistic classes.
spondulicks (n.): 1856, American English slang, "money, cash," of unknown origin, said to be from Greek spondylikos, from spondylos, a seashell used as currency (the Greek word means literally "vertebra"). "[U]sed by Mark Twain and by O. Henry and since then adopted into British English" [Barnhart], where it survived after having faded in the U.S.
sun (n.): Old English sunne "sun," from Proto-Germanic *sunnon (cognates: Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old High German sunna, Middle Dutch sonne, Dutch zon, German Sonne, Gothic sunno "the sun"), from PIE *s(u)wen- (cognates: Avestan xueng "sun," Old Irish fur-sunnud "lighting up"), alternative form of root *saewel- "to shine; sun" (see Sol).

Old English sunne was feminine (as generally in Germanic), and the fem. pronoun was used in English until 16c.; since then masc. has prevailed. The empire on which the sun never sets (1630) originally was the Spanish, later the British. To have one's place in the sun (1680s) is from Pascal's "Pensées"; the German imperial foreign policy sense (1897) is from a speech by von Bülow.
unto (prep.): mid-13c., perhaps a modification of until, with southern to in place of northern equivalent till. Or perhaps a contraction of native *und to, formed on the model of until from Old English *un- "up to, as far as," cognate of the first element in until. "Very rare in standard writers of the 18th c.," according to OED, and since then chiefly in dignified, archaic, or Biblical styles.
foodaholic: "A person who has an obsession with food; specifically a compulsive eater", 1960s; earliest use found in American Speech. From food + -aholic. More work from Old English:Work is connected with the Greek word ergon, which is the source of energy (late 16th century), ergonomic [1950s], and surgeon. Wrought, meaning ‘made in a particular way’ and found in wrought iron (early 18th century), is the old past form of work, which people used where we now use worked. Wright, a common surname that means ‘maker’ and is found in words such as shipwright (Old English) and wheelwright (Middle English), is also closely related to work. The first workaholic was mentioned in 1968. Since then we have had chocaholics and shopaholics, but the first word to be formed in this way from alcoholic was foodaholic, in 1965. The dictum ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available’ is known as Parkinson's law. It was first expressed by Professor C. Northcote Parkinson in 1955. Much older is the proverb All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, which is first found in 1659. See also devil