英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

strawberry: strawberry: [OE] The origins of strawberry have long puzzled etymologists. The two most plausible suggestions put forward are that the runners put out by strawberry plants, long trailing shoots that spread across the ground, reminded people of straws laid on the floor; and that word preserves a now defunct sense of straw, ‘small piece of straw or chaff’, supposedly in allusion to the fruit’s ‘chafflike’ external seeds.
Clematis (n.): plant genus, 1550s, "periwinkle," from Latin Clematis, from Greek klematis, in Dioscorides as the name of a climbing or trailing plant (OED says probably the periwinkle) with long and lithe branches, diminutive of klema "vine-branch, shoot or twig broken off" (for grafting), from klan "to break" (see clastic).
drag (n.): c. 1300, "dragnet," perhaps from a Scandinavian source (compare Swedish dragg "grapnel") or from Old English dræge "dragnet," related to dragan "to draw" (see drag (v.)).

Sense of "annoying, boring person or thing" is 1813, perhaps from the notion of something that must be dragged as an impediment. Sense of "women's clothing worn by a man" is said to be 1870 theater slang, from the sensation of long skirts trailing on the floor (another guess is Yiddish trogn "to wear," from German tragen); drag queen is from 1941.

Drag racing (1947), is said to be from thieves' slang drag "automobile" (1935), perhaps ultimately from slang sense of "wagon, buggy" (1755), because a horse would drag it. By 1851 this was transferred to "street," as in the phrase main drag (which some propose as the source of the racing sense).
In addition to the time trials there are a number of "drag races" between two or more cars. They are run, not for record, but to satisfy the desire of most Americans to see who can get from here to there in the fastest time. ["Popular Mechanics," January 1947]
dressy (adj.): 1760s, from dress (v.) + -y (2).
"For as her natural face decays, her skill improves in making the artificial one. Well, nothing diverts me more than one of those fine, old, dressy things, who thinks to conceal her age by everywhere exposing her person; sticking herself up in the front of a side-box; trailing through a minuet at Almack's; and then, in the public gardens looking, for all the world, like one of the painted ruins of the place." [Goldsmith, "The Good Natured Man," 1768].
nasturtium (n.): mid-12c., "plant of the mustard family, like watercress," from Latin nasturtium "cress;" the popular etymology explanation of the name (Pliny) is that it is from Latin *nasitortium, literally "nose-twist," from nasus "nose" (see nose (n.)) + past participle of torquere "to twist" (see torque (n.)); the plant so called for its pungent odor. Modern application to a South American trailing plant with orange flowers first recorded 1704.
trail (v.): c. 1300, "to hang down loosely and flow behind" (of a gown, sleeve, etc.), from Old French trailler "to tow; pick up the scent of a quarry," ultimately from Vulgar Latin *tragulare "to drag," from Latin tragula "dragnet, javelin thrown by a strap," probably related to trahere "to pull" (see tract (n.1)). Transitive sense of "to tow or pull along the ground" is from c. 1400. The meaning "follow the trail of" (an animal, etc.) is first recorded late 14c. Meaning "to lag behind" is from 1957. Related: Trailed; trailing.
trail (n.): early 14c., "trailing part of a robe, gown, etc.," from trail (v.). The meaning "track or smell left by a person or animal" is also from 1580s. Meaning "path or track worn in wilderness" is attested from 1807. Trail of Tears in reference to the U.S. government's brutally incompetent Cherokee removal of 1838-9 is attested by 1908.
train (n.): early 14c., "a drawing out, delay;" late 14c., "trailing part of a skirt, gown, or cloak;" also "retinue, procession," from Old French train "tracks, path, trail (of a rome or gown); act of dragging," from trainer "to pull, drag, draw," from Vulgar Latin *traginare, extended from *tragere "to pull," back-formation from tractus, past participle of Latin trahere "to pull, draw" (see tract (n.1)).,

General sense of "series, progression, succession, continuous course" is from late 15c. Train of thought first attested 1650s. The railroad sense "locomotive and the cars coupled to it" is recorded from 1820 (publication year, dated 1816), from notion of a "train" of wagons or carriages pulled by a mechanical engine.
trypanosome: "A single-celled parasitic protozoan with a trailing flagellum, infesting the blood", Early 20th century: from Greek trupanon 'borer' + -some³.