alive (adj.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict[alive 词源字典]
c. 1200, from Old English on life "in living." The fuller form on live was still current 17c. Alive and kicking "alert, vigorous," attested from 1859; "The allusion is to a child in the womb after quickening" [Farmer]. Used emphatically, especially with man; as in:
[A]bout a thousand gentlemen having bought his almanacks for this year, merely to find what he said against me, at every line they read they would lift up their eyes, and cry out betwixt rage and laughter, "they were sure no man alive ever writ such damned stuff as this." [Jonathan Swift, Bickerstaff's Vindication, 1709]
Thus abstracted as an expletive, man alive! (1845).[alive etymology, alive origin, 英语词源]
bee's knees (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1923, a survivor of a fad around this year for slang terms denoting "excellence" and based on animal anatomy. Also existed in the more ribald form bee's nuts. Other versions that lasted through the century are cat's whiskers (1923), cat's pajamas, cat's meow. More obscure examples are canary's tusks, cat's nuts and flea's eyebrows. The fad still had a heartbeat in Britain at the end of the century, as attested by the appearance of dog's bollocks in 1989. Bee's knee was used as far back as 1797 for "something insignificant."
DVDyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
1995, initialism (acronym) from Digital Video Disc, later changed to Digital Versatile Disc.
Earlier this year, electronics giant Toshiba positioned the first DVD players available in the U.S. as a home entertainment unit (retail price $600). ["Black Enterprise" magazine, June 1997]
syndicalism (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
1907, from French syndicalisme "movement to transfer ownership of means of production and distribution to industrial workers," from syndical "of a labor union," from syndic "chief representative" (see syndic).
"Syndicalism" is in France the new, all-absorbing form of Labor's conflict with Capital. Its growth has been so rapid that its gravity is not appreciated abroad. This year, even more than last, the strikes and other "direct action," which it has combined, have upset the industrial life of the country, and forced the attention of Parliament and Government. ["The Nation," June 20, 1907]
tango (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
syncopated ballroom dance, 1913 (the year it became a rage in Britain and America), from Argentine Spanish tango, originally the name of an African-American drum dance, probably from a Niger-Congo language (compare Ibibio tamgu "to dance"). Phrase it takes two to tango was a song title from 1952. As a verb from 1913. Related: Tangoed.
It is hardly a year ago since the Tango reached this country from South America by way of Paris. It was at first no more than a music-hall freak. But some of those mysterious people who inspire new social fashions were attracted by its sinuous movements and the strange backward kick, and this year it made its way into private houses as well as public ball rooms. [The Living Age, Dec. 13, 1913]


"I need not describe the various horrors of American and South American negroid origin. I would only ask hostesses to let one know what houses to avoid by indicating in some way on their invitation cards whether the 'turkey-trot,' the 'Boston' (the beginner of the evil), and the 'tango' will be permitted." [quoted in "Current Opinion," October 1913, as from a letter to the London Times]
year (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English gear (West Saxon), ger (Anglian) "year," from Proto-Germanic *jeram "year" (cognates: Old Saxon, Old High German jar, Old Norse ar, Danish aar, Old Frisian ger, Dutch jaar, German Jahr, Gothic jer "year"), from PIE *yer-o-, from root *yer- "year, season" (cognates: Avestan yare (nominative singular) "year;" Greek hora "year, season, any part of a year," also "any part of a day, hour;" Old Church Slavonic jaru, Bohemian jaro "spring;" Latin hornus "of this year;" Old Persian dušiyaram "famine," literally "bad year"). Probably originally "that which makes [a complete cycle]," and from verbal root *ei- meaning "to do, make."