英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

ammonia [ammonia 词源字典]: ammonia: [18] Ammonia gets its name ultimately from Amon, or Amen, the Egyptian god of life and reproduction. Near the temple of Amon in Libya were found deposits of ammonium chloride, which was hence named sal ammoniac – ‘salt of Amon’. The gas nitrogen hydride is derived from sal ammoniac, and in 1782 the Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman coined the term ammonia for it.
[ammonia etymology, ammonia origin, 英语词源]
bench: bench: [OE] Old English benc goes back to Germanic *bangk-, also the source of English bank (the related German bank means ‘bench’). The Northern and Scottish English versions of the word were benk and bink. The specific application to the seat on which a judge sits arose in the 13th century.
=> bank
marzipan: marzipan: [19] The word marzipan has long puzzled etymologists. An elaborate theory was formulated in the early 20th century that traced it back to Arabic mawthabān ‘king who sits still’. That was applied by the Saracens to a medieval Venetian coin with a figure of the seated Christ on it. A series of fairly implausible semantic changes led from ‘coin’ via ‘box’ to ‘confectionery’, while the form of the word supposedly evolved in Italian to marzapane.

This turns out to be completely wide of the mark (not surprisingly), but the truth seems scarcely less remarkable. In Burma (now Myanmar) there is a port called Martaban, which was renowned in the Middle Ages for the jars of preserves and fruits exported from there to Europe. The name of the place came to be associated with its products, and in Italian, as marzapane, it denoted a type of sweetmeat (-pane for -ban suggests that some people subconsciously connected the word with Italian pane ‘bread’). Marzapane and its relatives in other languages (such as early modern French marcepain) entered English in the 16th century, and from the confusion of forms the consensus spelling marchpane emerged.

This remained the standard English word for ‘marzipan’ until the 19th century, when marzipan was borrowed from German; this was an alteration of Italian marzapane, based on the misconception that it came from Latin marci pānis ‘Mark’s bread’.
soot: soot: [OE] Soot is etymologically that which ‘sits’ on something – that is, a film which settles on a surface. The word comes from a prehistoric Germanic *sōtam, which was descended from the Indo-European base *sōd-, *sed- ‘sit’ (source also of English settle, sit, etc). By the time it reached English it had become specialized in meaning to the ‘fine black particles produced by burning’.
=> settle, sit
tour: tour: [14] Etymologically, a tour is a ‘circular movement’. The word comes via Old French tour from Latin tornus ‘lathe’, which also produced English turn. It was not used for a ‘journey of visits’ – literally a ‘circuitous journey’ – until the 17th century (the term grand tour, denoting a lengthy journey around western Europe formerly undertaken by fashionable young men, ostensibly for educational purposes, is first recorded in the mid-18th century, but the derivative tourist does not crop up until about 1800). Tournament [13] and tourney [13] both go back ultimately to a Vulgar Latin derivative of tornus, the underlying etymological notion being of the combatants ‘turning’ or wheeling round to face each other.

And tourniquet [17] probably comes from the same source.
=> tournament, tourniquet, turn
Alsace: region between France and Germany (disputed by them 18c.-19c.), Medieval Latin Alsatia, from Old High German *Ali-sazzo "inhabitant of the other (bank of the Rhine)," from Proto-Germanic *alja "other" + Old High German -sazzo "inhabitant," literally "one who sits." Alsatian was adopted 1917 by the Kennel Club for "German Shepherd dog" to avoid the wartime associations of German; the breed has no connection with Alsace.
ammonia (n.): 1799, Modern Latin, coined 1782 by Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman (1735-1784) for gas obtained from sal ammoniac, salt deposits containing ammonium chloride found near temple of Jupiter Ammon (from Egyptian God Amun) in Libya, from Greek ammoniakos "belonging to Ammon." The shrine was ancient already in Augustus' day, and the salts were prepared "from the sands where the camels waited while their masters prayed for good omens" [Shipley].

There also was a gum form of sal ammoniac, from a wild plant that grew near the shrine, and across North Africa and Asia. A less likely theory traces the name to Greek Armeniakon "Armenian," because the substance also was found in Armenia. Also known as spirit of hartshorn and volatile or animal alkali.
bedstead (n.): c. 1400, from bed (n.) + stead; strictly "the place occupied by a bed," but usually "raised stand on which a bed sits."
bench-warmer (n.): 1892, baseball slang; see bench.
The days for "bench-warmers" with salaries are also past. ["New York Sporting News," Jan. 9, 1892]
Old English had bencsittend "one who sits on a bench."
blarney (n.): 1796, from Blarney Stone (which is said to make a persuasive flatterer of any who kiss it), in a castle near Cork, Ireland. As Bartlett explains it, the reason is the difficulty of the feat of kissing the stone where it sits high up in the battlement: "to have ascended it, was proof of perseverence, courage, and agility, whereof many are supposed to claim the honor who never achieved the adventure." So to have kissed the Blarney Stone came to mean "to tell wonderful tales" ["Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848]. The word reached wide currency through Lady Blarney, the smooth-talking flatterer in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" (1766). As a verb from 1803.
caliche (n.): sodium nitrate deposits in Chile and Peru, 1858, from American Spanish, from Spanish caliche "pebble in a brick," from Latin calx "pebble" (see chalk (n.)).
carbon (n.): non-metallic element, 1789, coined 1787 in French by Lavoisier as charbone, from Latin carbonem (nominative carbo) "a coal, glowing coal; charcoal," from PIE root *ker- (4) "heat, fire, to burn" (cognates: Latin cremare "to burn;" Sanskrit kudayati "singes;" Lithuanian kuriu "to heat," karštas "hot," krosnis "oven;" Old Church Slavonic kurjo "to smoke," krada "fireplace, hearth;" Russian ceren "brazier;" Old High German harsta "roasting;" Gothic hauri "coal;" Old Norse hyrr "fire;" Old English heorð "hearth").

Carbon 14, long-lived radioactive isotope used in dating organic deposits, is from 1936. Carbon dating (using carbon 14) is recorded from 1958. Carbon cycle is attested from 1912. Carbon footprint was in use by 2001. Carbon paper (soon to be obsolete) is from 1895.
clinic (n.): 1620s, from French clinique (17c.), from Latin clinicus "physician that visits patients in their beds," from Greek klinike (techne) "(practice) at the sickbed," from klinikos "of the bed," from kline "bed, couch, that on which one lies," from suffixed form of PIE root *kli- "lean, slope" (see lean (v.)).

Originally in English "bedridden person;" sense of "hospital" is 1884, from German Klinik in this sense, itself from French clinique, via the notion of "bedside medical education." The modern sense is thus reversed from the classical, when the "clinic" came to the patient. General sense of "conference for group instruction in something" is from 1919.
confessional (n.): "place where a priest sits to hear confession," 1727, from French confessional, from Medieval Latin confessionale, noun use of neuter of confessionalis (adj.), from confiteri (see confess).
epeiric (adj.): in reference to seas covering continental shelves, 1915, from Greek epeiros "mainland, land, continent," from PIE root *apero- "shore" (cognates: Old English ofer "bank, rim, shore," Old Frisian over "bank") + -ic.
As the term "continental deposits" in this sense is now ingrained in Geology, we can no longer use Dana's "continental seas" without raising a question in the mind as to what is meant when their deposits are considered. For this reason we propose here to use epeiric seas (meaning seas that lie upon the continents) for the bodies of water that lie within the continents in the downwarps of the continental masses. [Louis V. Pirsson, "A Text-Book of Geology," 1915]
fundament (n.): late 13c., "foundation, base; buttocks, anus," from Old French fondement "foundation, bottom; land, estate; anus" (12c.), from Latin fundamentum "a foundation, ground-work; support; beginning," from fundare "to found" (see bottom (n.)). So called because it is where one sits.
marzipan (n.): 1901 (in modern use; earlier march payne, late 15c., from French or Dutch), from German Marzipan, from Italian marzapane "candy box," from Medieval Latin matapanus "small box," earlier, "coin bearing image of seated Christ" (altered in Italian by folk etymology as though from Latin Marci panis "bread of Mark"), of uncertain origin. One suggestion is that this is from Arabic mawthaban "king who sits still." Nobody seems to quite accept this, but nobody has a better idea. The Medieval Latin word also is the source of Spanish marzapan, French massepain.
plaque (n.): 1848, "ornamental plate or tablet," from French plaque "metal plate, coin" (15c.), perhaps through Flemish placke "small coin," from Middle Dutch placke "disk, patch, stain," related to German Placken "spot, patch" (compare placard). Meaning "deposit on walls of arteries" is first attested 1891; that of "bacteria deposits on teeth" is 1898.
plaster of Paris (n.): mid-15c.; originally it was made from the extensive gypsum deposits of Montmartre in Paris.
seat (n.2): "residence, abode, established place," late 13c., extended use of seat (n.1), influenced by Old French siege "seat, established place," and Latin sedes "seat." Meaning "city in which a government sits" is attested from c. 1400. Sense of "right of taking a place in a parliament or other legislative body" is attested from 1774. Old English had sæt "place where one sits in ambush," which also meant "residents, inhabitants," and is the source of the -set in Dorset and Somerset.
sedentary (adj.): 1590s, "remaining in one place," from Middle French sédentaire (16c.) and directly from Latin sedentarius "sitting, remaining in one place," from sedentem (nominative sedens), present participle of sedere "to sit; occupy an official seat, preside; sit still, remain; be fixed or settled," from PIE root *sed- (1) "to sit" (cognates: Sanskrit a-sadat "sat down," sidati "sits;" Old Persian hadis "abode;" Greek ezesthai "to sit," hedra "seat, chair, face of a geometric solid;" Old Irish suide "seat, sitting;" Welsh sedd "seat," eistedd "sitting;" Old Church Slavonic sežda, sedeti "to sit;" Lithuanian sedmi "to sit;" Russian sad "garden," Lithuanian soditi "to plant;" Gothic sitan, Old English sittan "to sit;" see sit). Of persons, the sense "not in the habit of exercise" is recorded from 1660s.
shamble (v.): "to walk with a shuffling gait, walk awkwardly and unsteadily," 1680s, from an adjective meaning "ungainly, awkward" (c. 1600), from shamble (n.) "table, bench" (see shambles), perhaps on the notion of the splayed legs of bench, or the way a worker sits astride it. Compare French bancal "bow-legged, wobbly" (of furniture), properly "bench-legged," from banc "bench." The noun meaning "a shambling gait" is from 1828. Related: Shambled; shambling.
sitter (n.): c. 1300, "one that sits," agent noun from sit (v.). As short for baby-sitter from 1937.
sitting (n.): early 13c., verbal noun from sit (v.). Meaning "a meeting of a body" is from c. 1400. Meaning "interval during which one sits" (for some purpose, especially to have one's portrait taken) is from 1706. Sitting-room first recorded 1771. Slang sitting duck "easy target" first recorded 1944; literal sense is from 1867 (it is considered not sporting to shoot at one).
soda (n.): late 15c., "sodium carbonate," an alkaline substance extracted from certain ashes (now made artificially), from Italian sida (or Medieval Latin soda) "a kind of saltwort," from which soda was obtained, of uncertain origin. Perhaps it is from a Catalan sosa, attested from late 13c., of uncertain origin. Proposed Arabic sources in a name of a variety of saltwort have not been attested and that theory is no longer considered valid. Another theory, considered far-fetched in some quarters, traces it to Medieval Latin sodanum "a headache remedy," ultimately from Arabic suda "splitting headache."

Soda is found naturally in alkaline lakes, in deposits where such lakes have dried, and from ash produced by burning various seaside plants. A major trading commodity in the medieval Mediterranean, since commercial manufacture of it began in France in late 18c., these other sources have been abandoned. Washing soda (sodium carbonate) is commonly distinguished from baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). A soda-cracker (1863) has baking soda as an ingredient.

The meaning "carbonated water" is first recorded 1834, a shortening of soda water (1802) "water into which carbonic acid has been forced under pressure." "It rarely contains soda in any form; but the name originally applied when sodium carbonate was contained in it has been retained" [Century Dictionary, 1902]. Since 19c. typically flavored and sweetened with syrups. First record of soda pop is from 1863, and the most frequent modern use of the word is as a shortening of this or other terms for "flavored, sweetened soda water." Compare pop (n.1). Soda fountain is from 1824; soda jerk first attested 1915 (soda-jerker is from 1883). Colloquial pronunciation "sody" is represented in print from 1900 (U.S. Midwestern).
Sonora: Mexican state, from Spanish sonora "sonorous" (from Latin sonoros; see sonorous), supposedly so called in reference to marble deposits there which rang when struck.
wallflower (n.): 1570s, type of flowering plant cultivated in gardens, native to southern Europe, where it grows on old walls and in rocky places, from wall (n.) + flower (n.). Colloquial sense of "woman who sits by the wall at parties, often for want of a partner" is first recorded 1820.
cryolite: "A white or colourless mineral consisting of a fluoride of sodium and aluminium. It is added to bauxite as a flux in aluminium smelting", Early 19th century: from cryo- 'cold, frost' (because the main deposits are found in Greenland) + -lite.
palynology: "The study of pollen grains and other spores, especially as found in archaeological or geological deposits. Pollen extracted from such deposits may be used for radiocarbon dating and for studying past climates and environments by identifying plants then growing", 1940s: from Greek palunein 'sprinkle' + -logy.
atherogenic: "Tending to promote the formation of fatty deposits in the arteries", 1950s: from atheroma + -genic.
anhydrite: "A white mineral consisting of anhydrous calcium sulphate. It typically occurs in evaporite deposits", Early 19th century: from Greek anudros (see anhydrous) + -ite¹.
ossiferous: "(Of a cave or stratum) containing or yielding deposits of bone, especially fossil bone", Early 19th century: from Latin os, oss- 'bone' + -ferous.
bioturbation: "The disturbance of sedimentary deposits by living organisms", 1960s: from bio- + Latin turbatio(n-), from turbare 'disturb'.