英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

altruism [altruism 词源字典]: altruism: [19] Etymologically as well as semantically, altruism contains the notion of ‘other people’. It was borrowed from French altruisme, which was apparently coined in 1830 by the philosopher Auguste Comte on the basis of Italian altrui ‘that which belongs to other people’. This was the oblique case of altro ‘other’, from Latin alter. Littré’s Dictionnaire de la langue française suggests that the coinage was based on such French legal phrases as le bien d’autrui ‘the welfare of others’ and le droit d’autrui ‘the rights of others’ (autrui corresponds to Italian altrui).
=> alias, alter, else[altruism etymology, altruism origin, 英语词源]
anachronism: anachronism: [17] The Greek prefix anameant ‘up’, and hence, in terms of time, ‘back’; Greek khrónos meant ‘time’ (as in English chronicle): hence Greek anakhronismós ‘reference to a wrong time’. From the point of view of its derivation it should strictly be applied to the representation of something as happening earlier than it really did (as if Christ were painted wearing a wristwatch), but in practice, ever since the Greek term’s adoption into English, it has also been used for things surviving beyond their due time.
=> chronicle
aphorism: aphorism: see horizon
botulism: botulism: [19] The fact that Latin botulus was used metaphorically for ‘intestine’ is in this case just a red herring; its principal meaning was ‘sausage’, and it was the discovery of the foodpoisoning germ in cooked meats, such assausages, which led to the term botulism. Early work on unmasking the bacterium responsible (now known as Clostridium botulinum) was done in Germany, and at first the German form of the word, botulismus, was used in English, but by the late 1880s we find the naturalized botulism fairly well established.
catechism: catechism: [16] Etymologically, catechism is ‘teaching by the spoken word’. It is a derivative of catechize [15], which comes ultimately from the Greek verb katēkhein, a compound formed from the prefix katá- ‘thoroughly’ and the verb ēkhein ‘sound, resound’ (related to English echo). Thus originally to ‘catechize’ someone was literally to ‘din’ instruction into them, hence ‘instruct orally’. The word came into English via a later ecclesiastical Greek derivative katēkhízein and Latin catēchīzāre.
=> echo
chasm: chasm: see yawn
chauvinism: chauvinism: [19] Chauvinism in its original sense of ‘blind patriotism’ was coined in French from the name of one Nicholas Chauvin of Rochefort, a (possibly legendary) French soldier and veteran of Napoleon’s campaigns noted for his patriotic zeal. He was taken up and ridiculed as the type of the old soldier forever harking back to the glories of Napoleon’s times, and became widely known particularly through the play La cocarde tricolore 1831 by the brothers Cogniard, in which there occurs the line ‘Je suis français, je suis Chauvin’.

Hence French chauvinisme, which first appeared in English in 1870. The word’s more general application to an unreasoning belief in the superiority of one’s own group (particularly in the context male chauvinism) arose around 1970.
chrism: chrism: see cream
cosmos: cosmos: [17] Cosmos is a learned borrowing from Greek kósmos. The underlying meaning of this was ‘order’, and it appears originally to have been applied to the world and the universe by Pythagoras and his school in reference to the orderliness of creation. In the mid 20th century the word provided a useful linguistic distinction between Western and Soviet activities in space, cosmonaut (from Russian kosmonavt) contrasting with astronaut.

Somebody who is cosmopolitan [19] is literally a ‘citizen of the world’, from Greek kosmopolítēs, a compound of kósmos and polítēs. From Greek kósmos ‘order’ was derived the verb kosmein ‘arrange, adorn’. This in turn provided the basis of the adjective kosmētikós ‘skilled in adornment’, which passed into English as cosmetic [17].
=> cosmetic, cosmopolitan
dismal: dismal: [13] Etymologically, dismal means ‘bad day’. It comes, via Anglo-Norman dis mal, from Latin diēs malī, literally ‘evil days’, a term used to denote the two days in each month which according to ancient superstition were supposed to be unlucky (these days, of set date, were said originally to have been computed by Egyptian astrologers, and were hence also called Egyptian days). The term dismal thus acquired connotations of ‘gloom’ and ‘calamity’. Its earliest adjectival use, somewhat tautologically, was in the phrase dismal day, but in the late 16th century it broadened out considerably in application.
dismay: dismay: [13] The underlying meaning of dismay is ‘deprive of power’ – its second syllable is ultimately the same word as the verb may. It comes via Old French desmaier from Vulgar Latin *dismagāre ‘deprive of power’, a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘un-’ and the borrowed Germanic base *mag- ‘power, ability’ (source of English may).
=> may
dismiss: dismiss: [15] Ultimately, dismiss and demise [16] are the same word: both come from Old French desmis or demis ‘sent away’. These in turn came from dismissus, the medieval descendant of Latin dīmissus, which was the past participle of dīmittere, a compound verb formed from dis- ‘away’ and mittere ‘send’. In the case of dismiss, English originally acquired the word, more logically, in the form dismit, based on the Latin infinitive, but in the late 15th century dismiss, in the past participial form dismissed modelled on the French past participle, began to replace it. Demise comes from Anglo-Norman *demise, which represents a nominal use of the feminine form of Old French demis.

It was originally a technical legal term signifying the transference of property or title, and only in the 18th century came to be used for the ‘death’ which often brought this about.
=> commit, demise, mission, transmit
enthusiasm: enthusiasm: [17] Enthusiasm has had a chequered semantic history. Like giddiness, it meant originally ‘state of being inspired by a god’. It comes ultimately from Greek énthous or éntheos ‘possessed, inspired’, a compound formed from the prefix en- ‘in’ and theós ‘god’ (as in English theology). From this in turn was derived the verb enthousiázein ‘be inspired’ and the noun enthousiasmós, which passed into English via Latin or French, still with the sense ‘divine inspiration’ (‘Doth he think they knew it by enthusiasm or revelation from heaven?’ Richard Baxter, Infants’ church membership and baptism 1651).

In the stern climate of Puritanism, however, divine inspiration was not something to be encouraged, and as the 17th century progressed enthusiasm took on derogatory connotations of ‘excessive religious emotion’. The modern approbatory meaning, ‘eagerness’, had its beginnings at the start of the 18th century, and by the early 19th century had ousted the deprecatory sense from leading place.
=> theology
euphemism: euphemism: [17] Etymologically, euphemism means ‘speaking with good words’. Greek euphēmismós, a compound formed ultimately from the prefix eu- ‘good, well’ and phémē ‘speech, saying’ (a relative of English fable, fame, and fate), originally denoted the avoidance of words of ill omen at religious ceremonies, but it was subsequently taken up by grammarians to signify the substitution of a less for a more offensive word. Its opposite, dysphemism ‘use of a more offensive word’, is a modern coinage, formed in the late 19th century using the Greek prefix dus- ‘bad, difficult’.
=> fable, fame, fate
fauvism: fauvism: see fallow
grundyism: grundyism: [19] The term grundyism ‘prudishness’ was based on Mrs Grundy, a character in Thomas Moreton’s play Speed the Plough 1798 who became proverbial for her extreme rigidity in matters of sexual morality. Dame Ashfield, another character in the play, when contemplating some ticklish moral dilemma would invariably ask herself ‘What would Mrs Grundy say?’.
holism: holism: see holocaust
malapropism: malapropism: [19] English owes the word malapropism to Mrs Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan’s play The Rivals 1775 whose grandiloquent impulses led her to use slightly (but ludicrously) the wrong word: amongst the most familiar of her errors are ‘contagious countries’ (for contiguous), ‘a supercilious knowledge in accounts’ (for superficial), and ‘as head-strong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile’. Sheridan based the name on malapropos ‘inappropriate’ [17], an anglicization of French mal à propos, literally ‘badly to the purpose’ (on mal, see MALIGN).
=> malign, propose
masochism: masochism: [19] The term masochism was based on the name of Leopold von Sacher- Masoch (1836–95), an Austrian novelist who used the theme of gaining sexual gratification from the infliction of pain on oneself in his writings
mesmerize: mesmerize: [19] Franz Anton Mesmer (1734– 1815) was an Austrian doctor whose experiments with what he called ‘animal magnetism’, by which he induced a trance-like state in his subjects, are considered to be the forerunner of modern hypnotism (formerly called mesmerism [19]). The broader sense of mesmerize, ‘enthral’, dates from the early 20th century.
ombudsman: ombudsman: [20] The word ombudsman, denoting an ‘investigator of public complaints’, was introduced into English from Swedish, and was first used as a quasi-official term in the 1960s: New Zealand was the first Englishspeaking country to introduce such a post, in 1962, and Britain followed four years later. The Swedish word is a descendant of Old Norse umbothsmathr, literally ‘administration-man’; and umboth was originally a compound of um ‘about’ and both ‘command’ (a relative of English bid).
=> bid
optimism: optimism: [18] Etymologically as well as semantically, optimism means hoping for ‘the best’. It was coined in French (as optimisme) in 1737 as a term for the doctrine of the German philosopher Leibnitz (1646–1716) that the world is as good as it could possibly be. It was based on Latin optimum (source also of English optimum [19]), the neuter case of optimus ‘best’. This may have been formed from the preposition ob ‘in front of’ and a superlative suffix.
ostracism: ostracism: [16] In ancient Greece, when it was proposed that a particular person should be sent into exile for a period, because he was becoming a danger to the state, a democratic vote was taken on the matter. The method of registering one’s vote was to inscribe the name of the prospective banishee on a piece of broken pottery. The pieces were counted, and if enough votes were cast against him away he would go for ten years.

The fragment of pottery was called an óstrakon, a word related to Greek ostéon ‘bone’ (source of the English prefix osteo-) and óstreon ‘oyster’ (source of English oyster). To cast such a vote was therefore ostrakízein (whence English ostracize [17]), and the abstract now derived from this was ostrakismós, source of English ostracism.
pessimism: pessimism: [18] The first English writer on record as using pessimism was the poet Coleridge, in the 1790s. But he employed it for the ‘worst possible state’. The modern sense ‘expecting the worst’ did not emerge until the early 19th century. The word was probably coined first in French, and was based on Latin pessimus ‘worst’.
plasma: plasma: see plastic
prism: prism: [16] The etymological idea underlying the word prism is of its shape, that of a ‘sawn-off’ piece. It comes via medieval Latin prisma from Greek prísma, a derivative of the verb prízein ‘saw’. Its optical application emerged in English at the beginning of the 17th century.
sarcasm: sarcasm: [16] A sarcastic remark is etymologically one which involves the ‘rending of flesh’. Greek sárx meant ‘flesh’ (it has given English sarcoma [17] and sarcophagus), and it formed the basis of a verb sarkázein ‘tear the flesh’, hence ‘bite one’s lip, gnash one’s teeth’, and by further extension ‘make a cutting remark’. This gave rise to the late Greek derivative sarkasmós, which passed into English via late Latin sarcasmos and French sarcasme.
=> sarcoma, sarcophagus
schism: schism: [14] The Greek verb skhízein meant ‘split’ (it has given English schizophrenia, and a common source lies behind English schist [18], etymologically a ‘split rock’, and shit). From it was derived the noun skhísma, literally ‘split, division’, which in the Greek translation of the New Testament was applied to dissensions or discords between factions in the Church. English acquired it via late Latin schisma and Old French scisme or sisme.
=> concise, decide, schist, schizophrenia, scissors, shit
smack: smack: English has four separate words smack. The oldest, ‘taste’ [OE], is now mainly used metaphorically (as in smack of ‘suggest’). It has relatives in German geschmack, Dutch smaak, Swedish smak, and Danish smag ‘taste’, and may be distantly linked to Lithuanian smagus ‘pleasing’. Smack ‘hit’ [16] at first meant ‘open the lips noisily’, and was borrowed from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch smacken, which no doubt originated in imitation of the noise made.

It was not used for ‘hit with the palm of the hand’ until the mid 19th century. The slang use of the derivative smacker for ‘money’ originated in the USA around the end of World War I. Smack ‘small sailing boat’ [17] was borrowed from Dutch smak, a word of unknown origin. And smack ‘heroin’ [20] is probably an alteration of schmeck ‘heroin or other drug’ [20], which in turn comes from Yiddish schmeck ‘sniff’.
small: small: [OE] Small comes from a prehistoric Germanic *smalaz, which in turn probably goes back ultimately to *smel-, a variant of the Indo- European base *mel- ‘grind’ (source of English meal, mill, etc). Etymologically, therefore, it could well denote ‘ground up into little bits’. Its Germanic relatives, such as German schmal and Dutch smal, have become specialized in meaning to ‘narrow’, but while English did start off down this semantic path, it has long since abandoned it.
=> meal, mill, molar
smallpox: smallpox: see pox
smart: smart: [OE] Smart originated as a verb, meaning ‘be painful’. It came from a West Germanic base *smert-, *smart- (source also of German schmerz and Dutch smart ‘pain’), which may go back ultimately to the same Indo-European ancestor that produced Greek smerdnós ‘terrible’ and Latin mordēre ‘bite’ (source of English morsel, remorse, etc). The adjective smart was derived from the verb in the 11th century, and at first meant ‘stinging, painful’. Its modern senses ‘clever’ and ‘neat’ emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively.
=> morsel, remorse
smear: smear: [OE] Smear comes from a prehistoric Germanic *smerwjan, which also produced German schmieren, Dutch smeren, Swedish smörja, and Danish smøre. The Swedish and Danish words for ‘butter’, smör and smør, come from the same source (the former is the first element in the compound smörgåsbord ‘opensandwich table’, literally ‘butter goose table’, from which English gets smorgasbord [19]). Also closely related are Irish smir ‘marrow’ and Greek smúris ‘polishing powder’ (source of English emery [15]).
=> emery, smorgasbord
smell: smell: [12] Smell is something of a mystery word. It is assumed to go back to an Old English *smiellan or *smyllan, but no such verb has been recorded, nor have any related forms in other languages been pin-pointed for certain. One theory links it with English smoulder [14] and the related Dutch smeulen ‘smoulder’, as if the notion of ‘smelling’ arose from the idea of breathing vapour or smoke through the nose.
smelt: smelt: see melt
smile: smile: [13] The Old English word for ‘smile’ was smearcian, ancestor of modern English smirk. This was descended ultimately from the Indo- European base *smei-, which also produced Greek meidos ‘laugh’, Sanskrit smeras ‘smiling’, Latvian smaidīt ‘smile’, and Russian smejat’ sja ‘laugh’. Smile, which from the 13th century began to push smirk towards the more specialized sense ‘smile in a self-satisfied way’, comes from the same base, and was probably borrowed from a Scandinavian source (Swedish has smila and Danish smile).
=> smirk
smite: smite: [OE] Old English smītan meant ‘smear’ (it came from a prehistoric Germanic *smītan, which also produced German schmeissen ‘throw’, and probably went back ultimately to the Indo-European base *smēi-, source of Greek smékhein ‘rub, cleanse’, from which English gets smegma [19]). Exactly the same odd semantic development from ‘smear’ to ‘hit’, presumably via an intervening ‘stroke’, happened in the case of strike.
=> smegma, smut
smith: smith: [OE] Smith is a general Germanic word, with relatives in German schmied, Dutch smid, and Swedish and Danish smed. These point back to a prehistoric Germanic ancestor *smithaz. This appears to have meant simply ‘worker, craftsman’, a sense which survived into Old Norse smithr. The specialization to ‘metalworker’ is a secondary development.
smock: smock: [OE] Smock originally denoted a woman’s undergarment, and etymologically it may be a garment one ‘creeps’ or ‘burrows’ into. For it may be related to Old English smūgan ‘creep’ and smygel ‘burrow’ and to Old Norse smjúga ‘creep into, put on a garment’. The underlying comparison seems to be between pulling on a tight undershirt over one’s head and burrowing into a narrow space. Low German smukkelen or smuggelen, the source of English smuggle [17], may come from the same source.
=> smuggle
smoke: smoke: [OE] Smoke has close relatives in German schmauch and Dutch smook, now specialized in meaning to ‘thick smoke’. And more distantly it is linked to Welsh mwg and Breton moged ‘smoke’, Lithuanian smaugti ‘choke with smoke’, Greek smugenai ‘be consumed with heat’, and Armenian mux ‘smoke’. The use of the verb smoke in connection with tobacco is first recorded in 1604, in James I’s Counterblast to Tobacco.
smooth: smooth: [OE] Smooth is a mystery word, with no known relatives in any other Indo-European language. The usual term in Old English was smēthe, which survived into modern English dialect speech as smeeth. Smooth comes from the late Old English variant smōth.
smorgasbord: smorgasbord: see smear
smuggle: smuggle: see smock
smut: smut: [16] Smut is a member of a large but loosely-knit family of West Germanic words beginning with sm and ending in t or d that convey the general notion of ‘putting dirt on something’. Others include German schmutzen ‘get dirty’ and English smudge [15], and also English smite, which originally meant ‘smear’. Smut itself may have been borrowed from Low German smutt.
=> smite, smudge
solecism: solecism: [16] Solecism ‘act of (grammatical) impropriety’ comes via Latin soloecismus from Greek soloikismós, a derivative of sóloikos ‘ungrammatical utterance’. This is said to have referred originally to the speech of Athenian colonists in Soloi, in ancient Cilicia, southern Turkey, held by snooty sophisticates back home in Athens to be a debased form of their own speech.
spasm: spasm: [14] A spasm is etymologically a sudden ‘stretching’ of a muscle (although in fact physiologically spasms are contractions of muscle tissue). The word comes via Old French spasme and Latin spasmus from Greek spasmós, a derivative of the verb span ‘pull’. This in turn was descended from the Indo-European base *spə- ‘stretch’. The metaphorical notion of ‘intermittence’ (based on the intervals between spasms) emerged in the derived adjective spasmodic [17] in the 19th century.
=> stadium
spoonerism: spoonerism: [19] The term spoonerism commemorates the name of the Reverend William Spooner (1844–1930), Warden of New College, Oxford, who reputedly was in the habit of producing utterances with the initial letters of words reversed, often to comic effect (as in ‘hush my brat’ for ‘brush my hat’ or ‘scoop of boy trouts’ for ‘troop of boy scouts’)
syllogism: syllogism: [14] A syllogism is etymologically something ‘reasoned together’, hence ‘inferred’. The word comes via Old French sillogisme and Latin syllogismus from Greek sullogismós, a derivative of sullogīzesthai ‘reason together, infer’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix sun- ‘together’ and logízesthai ‘reason, reckon, compute’, a derivative of lógos ‘word, discourse, computation’ (source of English logarithm, logic, etc).
=> logarithm, logic
talisman: talisman: [17] Talisman, one of the very few English nouns ending in -man which does not turn into -men in the plural (dragoman is another), denotes etymologically an ‘object consecrated by the completion of a religious ritual’. It comes via French talisman from medieval Greek télesmon, an alteration of late Greek télesma ‘consecrated object’. This in turn was derived from the verb teleín ‘complete’, hence ‘perform a ritual’, hence ‘consecrate’, which was based on télos ‘aim, result’ (source of English teleology [18]).
=> teleology, television
abolitionism (n.): 1790, in the anti-slavery sense, from abolition + -ism.