quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- avoid




- avoid: [14] Avoid at first meant literally ‘make void, empty’. It was formed in Old French from the adjective vuide ‘empty’ (source of English void [13], and derived from a hypothetical Vulgar Latin *vocitus, which is related ultimately to vacant). With the addition of the prefix es- ‘out’, a verb evuider was formed, which passed into English via Anglo-Norman avoider. The original sense ‘empty’ barely survived into the 17th century, but meanwhile it had progressed through ‘withdrawing, so as to leave someone alone or leave a place empty’ to ‘deliberately staying away from someone or something’.
=> vacant, void - leave




- leave: [OE] English has two distinct words leave. The noun, meaning ‘permission’, comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *laubā, which was derived from a root meaning ‘pleasure, approval’ (other English words from the same source include believe and love). It passed semantically through ‘be well disposed to’ to ‘trust’ (a sense preserved in the related believe, and also in the cognate German glauben ‘believe’), and from there to ‘permit’.
The verb leave ‘go away’ comes from a prehistoric Germanic *laibjan ‘remain’. It has been speculated that this is related ultimately to various Indo-European words for ‘sticky substances’ or ‘stickiness’ (Sanskrit lipta- ‘sticky’, for instance, and Greek lípos ‘grease’, source of English lipid [20]), and that its underlying meaning is ‘remaining stuck’, hence ‘staying in a place’.
The sense ‘remain’ survived into English, but it died out in the 16th century, leaving as its legacy the secondary causative sense ‘cause to remain’. The apparently opposite sense ‘go away’, which emerged in the 13th century, arose from viewing the action of the verb from the point of view of the person doing the leaving rather than of the thing being left. The related German bleiben, which incorporates the prefix bi-, still retains the sense ‘remain’.
Other related English words, distant and close respectively, are eclipse and eleven.
=> believe, love; eclipse, eleven, lipid, twelve - vigil




- vigil: [13] Etymologically, to take part in a vigil, you have to be ‘alert’ and ‘awake’. The word comes via Old French vigile from Latin vigilia, which was derived from the adjective vigil ‘awake, alert’, so the notion underlying it is of staying awake to keep watch. Another derivative of the Latin adjective was vigilāre ‘keep watch’, which lies behind English reveille [17], surveillance [19], vigilant [15], and vigilante [19] (via Spanish). It came ultimately from the Indo-European base *wog-, *weg- ‘be lively or active’, which also produced English vigour, wake and watch.
=> reveille, surveillance, vigilante, vigour, wake, watch - wake




- wake: English has two distinct words wake. The older, ‘not sleep’ [OE], goes back ultimately to the prolific Indo-European base *wog-, *weg- ‘be active or lively’. This proliferated semantically in many directions, including ‘growth’ (in which it gave English vegetable) and ‘staying awake’, which developed into ‘watching’ and from there into ‘guarding’ (all three preserved in vigil).
The original sense ‘liveliness’ is represented in vigour. The prehistoric Germanic base *wak- took over the ‘not sleep, watch’ group of senses. From it was derived the verb *wakōjan, which subsequently split into two in English, producing wake and watch. The noun wake, which (unlike the verb) preserves the ‘watch’ strand of meaning (now specialized to ‘watching over a dead body’), comes from the same base. Waken [12] was borrowed from the related Old Norse vakna. Wake ‘track of a boat’ [16] probably came via Middle Low German wake from Old Norse vök ‘hole in the ice’.
=> vegetable, vigil, vigour, waft, wait, watch - living (adj.)




- "alive," also "residing, staying," c. 1200, from present participle of live (v.)).
- mansion (n.)




- mid-14c., "chief residence of a lord," from Old French mansion "stay, permanent abode, house, habitation, home; mansion; state, situation" (13c.), from Latin mansionem (nominative mansio) "a staying, a remaining, night quarters, station," noun of action from past participle stem of manere "to stay, abide," from PIE *men- "to remain, wait for" (cognates: Greek menein "to remain," Persian mandan "to remain"). Sense of "any large and stately house" is from 1510s. The word also was used in Middle English as "a stop or stage of a journey," hence probably astrological sense "temporary home" (late 14c.).
- parade (n.)




- 1650s, "a show of bravado," also "an assembly of troops for inspections," from French parade "display, show, military parade," from Middle French parade (15c.), or from Italian parate "a warding or defending, a garish setting forth," or Spanish parada "a staying or stopping," all from Vulgar Latin *parata, from Latin parere "arrange, prepare, adorn" (see pare), which developed widespread senses in Romanic derivatives. Non-military sense of "march, procession" is first recorded 1670s.
- stay (v.1)




- mid-15c., "cease going forward, come to a halt," also (transitive) "detain, hold back," from Old French estai-, stem of estare "to stay or stand," from Latin stare "to stand, stand still, remain standing; be upright, be erect; stand firm, stand in battle; abide; be unmovable; be motionless; remain, tarry, linger; take a side," (source also of Italian stare, Spanish estar "to stand, to be"), from PIE root *sta- "to stand" (see stet). Sense of "remain" is first recorded 1570s; that of "reside as a guest for a short period" is from 1550s. Related: Stayed; staying.
Of things, "remain in place," 1590s. Stay put is first recorded 1843, American English. "To stay put is to keep still, remain in order. A vulgar expression" [Bartlett]. Phrase stay the course is originally (1885) in reference to horses holding out till the end of a race. Stay-stomach was (1800) "a snack." - stay (v.2)




- "support, sustain," early 15c., from Middle French estayer (Modern French étayer), originally in nautical use, "secure by stays," from estaie (see stay (n.1)). The nautical sense in English is from 1620s. Related: Stayed; staying.
- transient (adj.)




- c. 1600, "transitory, not durable," from Latin transientem (nominative transiens) "passing over or away," present participle of transire "cross over, go over, pass over, hasten over, pass away," from trans- "across" (see trans-) + ire "to go" (see ion). Meaning "passing through a place without staying" is from 1680s. The noun is first attested 1650s; specific sense of "transient guest or boarder" attested from 1857. Related: Transiently.