quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- coomb (n.)
- also combe, "deep hollow or valley, especially on flank of a hill," mainly surviving in place names, from Old English cumb, probably a British word, from Celtic base *kumbos (compare Welsh cwm in same sense). Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names says, "This is usually taken to be a Celtic loan ... but there was also OE cumb 'vessel, cup, bowl,'" which was "probably used in a transferred topographical sense reinforced in western districts by cwm."
- Savannah
- port city in U.S. state of Georgia, from savana, name applied to the Native Americans in the area by early European explorers, perhaps from a self-designation of the Shawnee Indians, or from the European topographical term (see savannah).
- topography (n.)
- early 15c., "description of a place," from Late Latin topographia, from Greek topographia "a description of a place," from topos "place" (see topos) + -graphia (see -graphy). Meaning "collective features of a region" is from 1847. Related: Topographic; topographical; topographically.
- watershed (n.)
- "line separating waters flowing into different rivers," 1803, from water (n.1) + shed in a topographical sense of "ridge of high ground between two valleys or lower ground, a divide," perhaps from shed (v.) in its extended noun sense of "the part of the hair of the head" (14c.). Perhaps a loan-translation of German Wasser-scheide. Figurative sense is attested from 1878. Meaning "ground of a river system" is from 1878.