英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

drink: drink: [OE] Drink comes ultimately from a prehistoric Germanic verb *drengkan, which is widely represented in other modern Germanic languages: German trinken, for instance, Dutch drinken, Swedish dricka, and Danish drikke. Variants of it also produced English drench and drown. Its pre-Germanic history is not clear, however: some have suggested that the original underlying notion contained in it is of ‘sucking liquid in or up’, and that it is thus related to English draw (a parallel semantic connection has been perceived between Latin dūcere ‘lead, draw’ and the related tsuk- ‘drink’ in Tocharian A, an extinct Indo-European language of central Asia).
=> drench, drown
lamprey: lamprey: [12] The words lamprey and limpet [OE] come from the same source: medieval Latin lamprēda. This was an alteration of an earlier, 5th-century lampetra, which has been plausibly explained as literally ‘stone-licker’ (from Latin lambēre ‘lick’, source of English lambent, and petra ‘stone’). The reason for applying such a name to the limpet is fairly obvious – it clings fast to rocks – but in fact the lamprey too holds on to rocks, with its jawless sucking mouth.
=> lambent, limpet, petrol
suck: suck: [OE] Suck is part of a widespread Indo- European family of ‘suck’-words which go back to the base *seug-, *seuk-. This no doubt originated in imitation of the sound of sucking from the mother’s breast. Amongst its relatives are Latin sūgere (whose past participle sūctus gave English suction [17]), Welsh sugno, German saugen, Dutch zuigen, Swedish suga, and Danish suge. Suckle [15] was probably a back-formation from suckling [13], itself a derivative of suck.

Also from suck comes sucker [14], which originally denoted a ‘baby still at the breast’; its use for a ‘gullible person’ (that is, someone as naive as an unweaned child) originated in American English in the early 19th century.
=> suction, suckle
tit: tit: English has three separate words tit. The oldest, ‘breast’ [OE], belongs to a West Germanic family of terms for ‘breast’ or ‘nipple’ that also includes German zitze and Dutch tit: it presumably originated in imitation of a baby’s sucking sounds. From Germanic it was borrowed into the Romance languages, giving Italian tetta, Spanish teta, Romanian tata, and French tette.

The Old French ancestor of this, tete, gave English teat [13], which gradually replaced tit as the ‘polite’ term. (Titillate [17] may be ultimately related). Tit the bird [18] is short for titmouse [14]. This in turn was formed from an earlier and now defunct tit, used in compounds denoting ‘small things’ and probably borrowed from a Scandinavian language, and Middle English mose ‘titmouse’, which came from a prehistoric Germanic *maisōn (source also of German meise and Dutch mees ‘tit’).

And the tit [16] of tit for tat (which produced British rhyming slang titfer ‘hat’ [20]) originally denoted a ‘light blow, tap’, and was presumably of onomatopoeic origin. (The tit- of titbit [17], incidentally, is probably a different word. It was originally tid- – as it still is in American English – and it may go back ultimately to Old English tiddre ‘frail’.)
=> teat, titillate; titmouse
vampire: vampire: [18] Vampire probably goes back ultimately to ubyr, a word for ‘witch’ in the Kazan Tatar language of an area to the east of Moscow. This was borrowed into Russian as upyr’, and from there probably found its way into Hungarian as vampir. English acquired it via French vampire or German vampir. The application of the word to a type of bloodsucking bat was introduced by the 18th-century French biologist Buffon.
aardvark (n.): 1833, from Afrikaans Dutch aardvark, literally "earth-pig" (the animal burrows), from aard "earth" (see earth) + vark "pig," cognate with Old High German farah (source of German Ferkel "young pig, sucking pig," a diminutive form), Old English fearh (see farrow).
hickie (n.): "love bite; mark on skin made by biting or sucking during foreplay or sex," 1934; earlier "pimple, skin lesion" (c. 1915); perhaps a sense extension and spelling variation from earlier word meaning "small gadget, device; any unspecified object" (1909, see doohickey, still used in this sense).
leech (n.1): "bloodsucking aquatic worm," from Old English læce (Kentish lyce), of unknown origin (with a cognate in Middle Dutch lake). Commonly regarded as a transferred use of leech (n.2), but the Old English forms suggest a distinct word, which has been assimilated to leech (n.2) by folk etymology [see OED]. Figuratively applied to human parasites since 1784.
mamma (n.): 1570s, representing the native form of the reduplication of *ma- that is nearly universal among the Indo-European languages (Greek mamme "mother, grandmother," Latin mamma, Persian mama, Russian and Lithuanian mama "mother," German Muhme "mother's sister," French maman, Welsh mam "mother"). Probably a natural sound in baby-talk, perhaps imitative of sound made while sucking.

Its late appearance in English is curious, but Middle English had mome (mid-13c.) "an aunt; an old woman," also an affectionate term of address for an older woman. In educated usage, the stress is always on the last syllable. In terms of recorded usage of related words in English, mama is from 1707, mum is from 1823, mummy in this sense from 1839, mommy 1844, momma 1852, and mom 1867.
mermaid (n.): mid-14c., mermayde, literally "maid of the sea," from Middle English mere "sea, lake" (see mere (n.)) + maid. Old English had equivalent merewif "water-witch" (see wife), meremenn "mermaid, siren." Tail-less in northern Europe; the fishy form is a medieval influence from classical sirens. A favorite sign of taverns and inns since at least early 15c. (in reference to the inn on Bread Street, Cheapside, London). Mermaid pie (1660s) was "a sucking pig baked whole in a crust."
prime (v.): "to fill, charge, load" (a weapon), 1510s, probably from prime (adj.). Meaning "to cover with a first coat of paint or dye" is from c. 1600. To prime a pump (c. 1840) meant to pour water down the tube, which saturated the sucking mechanism and made it draw up water more readily. Related: Primed; priming.
remora (n.): 1560s, from Latin remora "sucking fish," literally "delay, hindrance," from re- "back" (see re-) + mora "delay" (see moratorium); so called because the fish were believed by the ancients to retard a vessel to which they attached themselves. Hence, in 17c.-18c., "an obstacle, an impediment" (the first sense of the word in Johnson's dictionary). In Greek, ekheneis, from ekhein "to hold" + naus (dative nei) "ship." Pliny writes that Antony's galley was delayed by one at Actium. Sometimes called in English stayship or stopship.
suck (v.): Old English sucan "to suck," from a Germanic root of imitative origin (cognates: Old Saxon, Old High German sugan, Old Norse suga, Danish suge, Swedish suga, Middle Dutch sughen, Dutch zuigen, German saugen "to suck"), possibly from the same source as Latin sugere "to suck," succus "juice, sap;" Old Irish sugim, Welsh sugno "to suck;" see sup (v.2). As a noun from c. 1300.

Meaning "do fellatio" is first recorded 1928. Slang sense of "be contemptible" first attested 1971 (the underlying notion is of fellatio). Related: Sucked; sucking. Suck eggs is from 1906. Suck hind tit "be inferior" is American English slang first recorded 1940.
The old, old saying that the runt pig always sucks the hind teat is not so far wrong, as it quite approximates the condition that exists. ["The Chester White Journal," April 1921]
suction (n.): 1620s, "act or process of sucking," from Late Latin suctionem (nominative suctio), noun of action from past participle stem of Latin sugere "to suck" (see sup (v.2)). As "action produced by a vacuum" from 1650s.
suctorial (adj.): 1826, "pertaining to or adapted for sucking," from Modern Latin suctorius, from Latin suct-, past participle stem of sugere "to suck" (see sup (v.2)). Meaning "having a sucking organ" is from 1829.
tick (n.1): parasitic blood-sucking arachnid animal, Old English ticia, from West Germanic *tik- (cognates: Middle Dutch teke, Dutch teek, Old High German zecho, German Zecke "tick"), of unknown origin, perhaps from PIE *deigh- "insect." French tique (mid-15c.), Italian zecca are Germanic loan-words.
vampire (n.): spectral being in a human body who maintains semblance of life by leaving the grave at night to suck the warm blood of the living as they sleep, 1734, from French vampire (18c.) or German Vampir (1732, in an account of Hungarian vampires), from Hungarian vampir, from Old Church Slavonic opiri (cognates: Serbian vampir, Bulgarian vapir, Ukrainian uper), said by Slavic linguist Franc Miklošič to be ultimtely from Kazan Tatar ubyr "witch," but Max Vasmer, an expert in this linguistic area, finds that phonetically doubtful. An Eastern European creature popularized in English by late 19c. gothic novels, however there are scattered English accounts of night-walking, blood-gorged, plague-spreading undead corpses from as far back as 1196. Figurative sense of "person who preys on others" is from 1741. Applied 1774 by French biologist Buffon to a species of South American blood-sucking bat. Related: Vampiric.
Hemiptera: "A large order of insects that comprises the true bugs, which include aphids, cicadas, leafhoppers, and many others. They have piercing and sucking mouthparts and incomplete metamorphosis", Modern Latin (plural), from Greek hēmi- 'half' + pteron 'wing' (because of the forewing structure, partly hardened at the base and partly membranous).
cyclostome: "An eel-like jawless vertebrate with a round sucking mouth, of a former group that included the lampreys and hagfishes", Mid 19th century: from cyclo- + Greek stoma 'mouth'.
Phthiraptera: "An order of insects that is sometimes applied, comprising both the sucking lice and the biting lice", Modern Latin (plural), from Greek phtheir 'louse' + pteron 'wing'.