英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

duct [duct 词源字典]: duct: [17] Duct comes from Latin ductus, a noun formed from the past participle of the verb dūcere ‘lead’. This is among the most prolific Latin sources of English words. It appears in numerous prefixed forms, all containing to some extent the underlying meaning element ‘lead’, such as deduce, introduce, produce, and reduce, as well as educate and, in less obvious form, subdue.

Its past participle produced aqueduct and ductile [14], not to mention (via Vulgar Latin *ductiāre and Italian docciare) douche [18]. And furthermore it comes ultimately from the same Indo-European source as produced English team, teem, tie, tight, tow, and tug.
=> aqueduct, conduct, deduce, deduct, douche, duke, educate, introduce, produce, reduce, seduce, team, tie, tight, tow, tug[duct etymology, duct origin, 英语词源]
flavour: flavour: [14] The form of the word flavour, and probably to some extent its meaning, owe a lot to savour. It was borrowed from Old French flaor, and originally meant ‘smell’ (the current association with ‘taste’ did not develop until the 17th century). The savour-influenced change from flaor to flavour seems to have happened somewhere in the crack between Old French and Middle English: there is no evidence of a -vspelling in Old French.

The Old French word itself came from Vulgar Latin *flātor ‘smell’, a derivative of Latin flātus ‘blowing, breeze, breath’ (possibly influenced by Latin foetor ‘foul smell’). Flātus in turn came from the past participle of flāre ‘blow’.
tittle (n.): late 14c., "small stroke or point in writing" (Wyclif, in Matt. v:18), translating Latin apex in Late Latin sense of "accent mark over a vowel," which itself translates Greek keraia (literally "a little horn"), used by the Greek grammarians of the accents and diacritical points, in this case a Biblical translation of Hebrew qots, literally "thorn, prick," used of the little lines and projections by which the Hebrew letters of similar form differ from one another.

Wyclif's word is borrowed from a specialized sense of Latin titulus (see title (n.)), which was used in Medieval Latin (and in Middle English and Old French) to indicate "a stroke over an abridged word to indicate letters missing" (and compare Provençal titule "the dot over -i-").
"As apex was used by the Latin grammarians for the accent or mark over a long vowel, titulus and apex became to some extent synonymous; hence Wyclif's use of titil, titel to render L. apex" [OED]
Compare tilde, which is the Spanish form of the same word.
varsity (adj.): 1825, "university," variant of earlier versity (1670s), shortened form of university. Compare varsal (1690s), short for universal; varmint from vermin; and Grose's "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (1788) has vardy as slang for verdict. "Used in English universities, and affected to some extent in American colleges" [Century Dictionary].
bated: "In great suspense; very anxiously or excitedly", Late 16th century: from the past participle of obsolete bate 'restrain', from abate. More A shortened form of abated (Middle English), meaning ‘reduced, lessened’. The idea behind the phrase with bated breath is that the anxiety or excitement you experience while waiting for something to happen is so great that you almost stop breathing. The word is sometimes spelled baited, from a mistaken association with a fisherman's bait. It came from the Old French abattre ‘to fell’, from Latin ad ‘to, at’ and batt(u)ere ‘to beat’ which is also the source of abattoir, which to some extent replaced the medieval term slaughterhouse in the early 19th century.
ish (1): "To some extent", 1980s: from -ish¹.