quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- post



[post 词源字典] - post: Including the prefix post-, English has four different words post. The oldest, ‘long upright piece of wood, metal, etc’ [OE], was borrowed from Latin postis. From it was derived the verb post ‘fix to a post’, which in turn produced poster [19], denoting a placard that can be ‘posted’ up. Post ‘mail’ [16] comes via French poste and Italian posta from Vulgar Latin *posta, a contracted version of posita, the feminine form of the past participle of Latin pōnere ‘put, place’ (source of English position).
The notion underlying the sense ‘mail’ is of riders ‘placed’ or stationed at intervals along a road so as to carry letters at speed by a relay system. Post ‘job’ [16] reached English via a very similar route, this time from the neuter form of the Latin past participle, positum. This became *postum in Vulgar Latin, which produced Italian posto, French poste, and English post.
Here again the word’s original meaning, ‘position where a soldier is placed’, reflects that of its Latin source pōnere. The prefix post- comes from the Latin preposition post ‘after’. It occurs in a number of English words that go back to Latin ancestors (including posterior [16], posthumous, postpone [16], postscript [16], and the more heavily disguised preposterous), as well as being widely used to create new coinages (such as postgraduate [19] and postwar [20]).
=> position[post etymology, post origin, 英语词源] - snooker




- snooker: [19] The most widely canvassed theory of the origins of the term snooker is that it is an adaptation of late 19th-century army slang snooker ‘new cadet’ (‘These embryo generals were called by the somewhat sneering terms of “snookers” or “last-joined”,’ Routledge’s Every Boy’s Annual 1872). The game was invented, as a diversion perhaps from the monotony of billiards, by British army officers serving in India in the 1870s, and the story goes that the term snooker was applied to it by Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain (1856–1944), at that time a subaltern in the Devonshire Regiment stationed in Jubbulpore, in allusion to the inept play of one of his brother officers.
The ancestry of snooker ‘new cadet’, however, remains a mystery.
- Amerasian




- 1966, noun and adjective, from American + Asian; coined in reference to children fathered by U.S. servicemen stationed in Asia during the Cold War.
- deadline (n.)




- "time limit," 1920, American English newspaper jargon, from dead (adj.) + line (n.). Perhaps influenced by earlier use (1864) to mean the "do-not-cross" line in Civil War prisons, which figured in the Wirz trial.
And he, the said Wirz, still wickedly pursuing his evil purpose, did establish and cause to be designated within the prison enclosure containing said prisoners a "dead line," being a line around the inner face of the stockade or wall enclosing said prison and about twenty feet distant from and within said stockade; and so established said dead line, which was in many places an imaginary line, in many other places marked by insecure and shifting strips of [boards nailed] upon the tops of small and insecure stakes or posts, he, the said Wirz, instructed the prison guard stationed around the top of said stockade to fire upon and kill any of the prisoners aforesaid who might touch, fall upon, pass over or under across the said "dead line" .... ["Trial of Henry Wirz," Report of the Secretary of War, Oct. 31, 1865]
- garrison (n.)




- c. 1300, "store, treasure," from Old French garison "defense, protection, safety, security; crops, food; salvation; healing, recovery, cure" (Modern French guérison "cure, recovery, healing") from garir "defend" (see garret). Meaning "fortified stronghold" is from early 15c.; that of "body of troops in a fortress" is from mid-15c., a sense taken over from Middle English garnison "body of armed men stationed in a fort or town to guard it" (late 14c.), from Old French garnison "provision, munitions," from garnir "to furnish, provide" (see garnish (v.)).
- midshipman (n.)




- c. 1600, originally so called because he was stationed amidships when on duty (see amid).
- picket (n.)




- 1680s, "pointed stake (for defense against cavalry, etc.)," from French piquet "pointed stake," from piquer "to pierce" (see pike (n.2)). Sense of "troops posted to watch for enemy" first recorded 1761; that of "striking workers stationed to prevent others from entering a factory" is from 1867. Picket line is 1856 in the military sense, 1945 of labor strikes.
- post (n.2)




- "place when on duty," 1590s, from Middle French poste "place where one is stationed," also, "station for post horses" (16c.), from Italian posto "post, station," from Vulgar Latin *postum, from Latin positum, neuter past participle of ponere "to place, to put" (see position (n.)). Earliest sense in English was military; meaning "job, position" is attested 1690s.
- station (v.)




- "to assign a post or position to," 1748, from station (n.). Related: Stationed; stationing.
- station (n.)




- late 13c., "place which one normally occupies," from Old French stacion, estacion "site, location; station of the Cross; stop, standstill," from Latin stationem (nominative statio) "a standing, standing firm; a post, job, position; military post; a watch, guard, sentinel; anchorage, port" (related to stare "to stand"), from PIE *ste-ti-, suffixed form of root *sta- "to stand" (see stet).
Meaning "each of a number of holy places visited in succession by pilgrims" is from late 14c., as in Station of the Cross (1550s). Meaning "fixed uniform distance in surveying" is from 1570s. Sense of "status, rank" is from c. 1600. Meaning "military post" in English is from c. 1600. The meaning "place where people are stationed for some special purpose" (as in polling station) is first recorded 1823. Radio station is from 1912; station break, pause in broadcasting to give the local station a chance to identify itself, is from 1942.
The meaning "regular stopping place" is first recorded 1797, in reference to coach routes; applied to railroads 1830. Station-master is from 1836. Station wagon in the automobile sense is first recorded 1929, from earlier use for a horse-drawn conveyance that took passengers to and from railroad stations (1894). Station house "police station" is attested from 1836.