英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

ecology [ecology 词源字典]: ecology: [19] Interpreted literally, ecology means ‘study of houses’. The word was coined, as ökologie, by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel in the 1870s, on the basis of Greek oikos (as in economy). This means literally ‘house’, but Haeckel was using it in the wider sense ‘dwelling, habitat’. English adopted the word soon after its coinage, originally in the quasi- Latin form oecology.
=> economy[ecology etymology, ecology origin, 英语词源]
nectar: nectar: [16] Nectar was originally the drink of the Greek gods, but soon after the word’s arrival in English it was being used metaphorically for any ‘delicious drink’. It comes via Latin nectar from Greek néktar, and it has been speculated that this may have been derived from the base *nek- ‘kill’ (source also of English necromancy), as some sort of allusion to the ‘immortality’ of the gods. Nectarine [17], the name of a sort of peach based on the now disused adjective nectarine ‘like nectar’, was probably inspired by German nektarpfirsich ‘nectar-peach’.
tycoon: tycoon: [19] Japanese taikun was a title used for the military commander or shogun of Japan, particularly by his supporters when addressing foreigners, in the attempt to convey the impression that he was more powerful and important than the emperor. For it meant literally ‘great prince, emperor’. It was borrowed from ancient Chinese t’ai kiuən ‘emperor’, a compound formed from t’ai ‘great’ and kiuən ‘prince’. English acquired it in the 1850s, and it began to be used more generally for a ‘highranking personage’ in the USA soon afterwards. The specific application to businessmen seems to have evolved after World War I.
eftsoons (adv.): obsolete or archaic way of saying "soon afterward," from Old English eftsona "a second time, repeatedly, soon after, again," from eft "afterward, again, a second time" (from Proto-Germanic *aftiz, from PIE root *apo- "off, away;" see apo-) + sona "immediately" (see soon). With adverbial genitive. Not in living use since 17c.
fairy (n.): c. 1300, fairie, "the country or home of supernatural or legendary creatures; fairyland," also "something incredible or fictitious," from Old French faerie "land of fairies, meeting of fairies; enchantment, magic, witchcraft, sorcery" (12c.), from fae "fay," from Latin fata "the Fates," plural of fatum "that which is ordained; destiny, fate," from PIE *bha- "to speak" (see fame (n.)). Also compare fate (n.), also fay.
In ordinary use an elf differs from a fairy only in generally seeming young, and being more often mischievous. [Century Dictionary]
But that was before Tolkien. As a type of supernatural being from late 14c. [contra Tolkien; for example "This maketh that ther been no fairyes" in "Wife of Bath's Tale"], perhaps via intermediate forms such as fairie knight "supernatural or legendary knight" (c. 1300), as in Spenser, where faeries are heroic and human-sized. As a name for the diminutive winged beings in children's stories from early 17c.
Yet I suspect that this flower-and-butterfly minuteness was also a product of "rationalization," which transformed the glamour of Elfland into mere finesse, and invisibility into a fragility that could hide in a cowslip or shrink behind a blade of grass. It seems to become fashionable soon after the great voyages had begun to make the world seem too narrow to hold both men and elves; when the magic land of Hy Breasail in the West had become the mere Brazils, the land of red-dye-wood. [J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," 1947]
Hence, figurative adjective use in reference to lightness, fineness, delicacy. Slang meaning "effeminate male homosexual" is recorded by 1895. Fairy ring, of certain fungi in grass fields (as we would explain it now), is from 1590s. Fairy godmother attested from 1820. Fossil Cretaceous sea urchins found on the English downlands were called fairy loaves, and a book from 1787 reports that "country people" in England called the stones of the old Roman roads fairy pavements.
kibitz (v.): 1927, from Yiddish kibitsen "to offer gratuitous advice as an outsider," from German kiebitzen "to look on at cards, to kibitz," originally in thieves' cant "to visit," from Kiebitz, name of a shore bird (European pewit, lapwing) with a folk reputation as a meddler, from Middle High German gibitz "pewit," imitative of its cry. Young lapwings are proverbially precocious and active, and were said to run around with half-shells still on their heads soon after hatching.
knee-jerk (n.): patellar reflex, neurological phenomenon discovered and named 1876; the figurative use appeared soon after the phrase was coined.
weenie (n.): "frankfurter," 1906, with slang sense of "penis" following soon after, from German wienerwurst "Vienna sausage" (see wiener). Meaning "ineffectual person, effeminate young man" is slang from 1963; pejorative sense via penis shape, or perhaps from weenie in the sense of "small" (see wee).