英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

syllabus [syllabus 词源字典]: syllabus: [17] The word syllabus is the result of a misprint. It originated as Greek sittúbā ‘label, table of contents’, which was borrowed into Latin as sittyba. However, in an early printed edition of Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, in the 1470s, its accusative plural form sittybas was misprinted as syllabos. This was taken as representing a Greek súllabos, a supposed (but quite spurious) derivative of Greek sullambánein ‘gather together’ (source of English syllable), which was then relatinized to syllabus. Its earliest application to the ‘contents of a course of instruction’ appears to date from the late 18th century.
[syllabus etymology, syllabus origin, 英语词源]
table: table: [12] Latin tabula originally denoted a ‘board’ or ‘plank’, and hence a ‘slab for writing on’ and a ‘list or similar arrangement of words or figures written on such a slab’ (as in a ‘table of contents’). It was in the farther outposts of the Roman empire that the sense ‘piece of furniture for serving meals on’ emerged – possibly in Frankish, where it would have been a direct translation of the term used for ‘table’, which meant literally ‘serving board’ (until tables with legs found their way northward from Greece and Rome, food had been served on individual trays or boards).

In much of the empire it became established as the word for ‘table’ (and it passed into English via Old French table), although in Spanish the original Latin term mensa survived as mesa. Derivatives in English include entablature [17], tableau [17] (originally a French diminutive form), tablet, tabloid, and tabular [17].
=> entablature, tableau, tablet, tabloid, tabular
contents (n.): "things contained" in something (the stomach, a document, etc.), early 15c., Latin contentum (plural contenta), neuter past participle of continere (see contain). Table of contents is late 15c.
syllabus (n.): 1650s, "table of contents of a series of lectures, etc.," from Late Latin syllabus "list," ultimately a misreading of Greek sittybos "parchment label, table of contents," of unknown origin. The misprint appeared in a 15c. edition of Cicero's "Ad Atticum" (see OED). Had it been a real word, the proper plural would be syllabi.
table (n.): late 12c., "board, slab, plate," from Old French table "board, square panel, plank; writing table; picture; food, fare" (11c.), and late Old English tabele "writing tablet, gaming table," from Germanic *tabal (cognates: Dutch tafel, Danish tavle, Old High German zabel "board, plank," German Tafel). Both the French and Germanic words are from Latin tabula "a board, plank; writing table; list, schedule; picture, painted panel," originally "small flat slab or piece" usually for inscriptions or for games (source also of Spanish tabla, Italian tavola), of uncertain origin, related to Umbrian tafle "on the board."

The sense of "piece of furniture with the flat top and legs" first recorded c. 1300 (the usual Latin word for this was mensa (see mensa); Old English writers used bord (see board (n.1)). Especially the table at which people eat, hence "food placed upon a table" (c. 1400 in English). The meaning "arrangement of numbers or other figures on a tabular surface for convenience" is recorded from late 14c. (as in table of contents, mid-15c.).

Figurative phrase turn the tables (1630s) is from backgammon (in Old and Middle English the game was called tables). Table talk "familiar conversation around a table" is attested from 1560s, translating Latin colloquia mensalis. Table-manners is from 1824. Table-hopping is first recorded 1943. The adjectival phrase under-the-table "hidden from view" is recorded from 1949; to be under the table "passed out from excess drinking" is recorded from 1913. Table tennis "ping-pong" is recorded from 1887. Table-rapping in spiritualism, supposedly an effect of supernatural powers, is from 1853.