英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

anguish: anguish: [13] English acquired anguish from Old French anguisse, changing its ending to -ish in the 14th century. Its central notion of ‘distress’ or ‘suffering’ goes back ultimately (as in the case of the related anger) to a set of words meaning ‘constriction’ (for the sense development, compare the phrase in dire straits, where strait originally meant ‘narrow’).

Old French anguisse came from Latin angustia ‘distress’, which was derived from the adjective angustus ‘narrow’. Like Greek ánkhein ‘squeeze, strangle’ (ultimate source of English angina [16]) and Latin angere ‘strangle’, this came originally from an Indo-European base *angg- ‘narrow’.
=> anger, angina
idiosyncracy: idiosyncracy: [17] Greek idios meant ‘of a particular person, personal, private, own’. Among the words it has contributed to English are idiom [16] (etymologically ‘one’s own particular way of speaking’), idiot, and idiosyncracy. This was a compound formed in Greek with súgkrāsis, itself a compound noun made up of sún ‘together’ and krāsis ‘mixture’ (a relative of English crater). Súgkrāsis originally meant literally ‘mixture’, but it was later used metaphorically for ‘mixture of personal characteristics, temperament’, and so idiosúgkrāsis was ‘one’s own particular mix of traits’.
=> idiom, idiot
narcissus: narcissus: [16] The plant-name narcissus goes back via Latin to Greek narkissos. Writers of ancient times such as Pliny and Plutarch connected it with Greek nárkē ‘numbness’ (source of English narcotic), a tempting inference given the plant’s sedative effect, but in fact it probably came from an unknown pre- Greek Aegean language. In Greek mythology the name passed to a vain youth who was punished by the gods for spurning the love of Echo.

They made him fall in love with the reflection of his beautiful features in a pool. He died gazing at his own image and was changed into a narcissus plant. In the 19th century his story inspired the word narcissism. At first it was just a general term for excessive self-admiration and self-centredness, but in the 1890s (probably at the hands of the sexologist Havelock Ellis) it became a technical term for a specific personality disorder marked by those traits.
narrow: narrow: [OE] Narrow comes from a prehistoric Germanic *narwaz, whose only other modern representative is Dutch naar ‘unpleasant, sad’ (although it also occurs in Norva-sund, the Old Norse term for the ‘Straits of Gibraltar’). It is not known for certain where it comes from, but a connection has been suggested with Latin nervus ‘sinew, bowstring’ (source of English nerve) and Old High German snuor ‘string’, which might point back to an ancestral sense ‘tying together tightly’.
strait: strait: [12] Strait was originally an adjective and adverb, meaning ‘narrow’ or ‘tight’. It reached English via Old French estreit ‘narrow, tight’ from Latin strictus (source of English strict). Its use as a noun, ‘narrow waterway’, emerged in the 14th century, and the metaphorical straits ‘difficulties’ is a 16th-century development.
=> strict
temper: temper: [OE] The verb temper was borrowed into Old English from Latin temperāre ‘mix, blend’. This seems originally to have meant ‘mix in due proportion’, and so may have been derived from Latin tempus ‘time, due time’ (source of English temporary). The noun temper was derived from the verb in the 14th century in the sense ‘mixture of elements’, and this led on in the 17th century to ‘set of mental traits’ (a meaning that has now largely passed to the derivative temperament [15]).

The modern sense ‘ill humour’ emerged from this in the 19th century. Another meaning of Latin temperāre was ‘restrain oneself’, which has come through into the derivatives temperance [14] and temperate [14]. Other relatives include distemper and temperature. Tamper probably originated as an alteration of temper.
=> distemper, tamper, tempera, temperature
Aquarius: faint constellation and 11th zodiac sign, late Old English, from Latin aquarius, literally "water carrier," properly an adjective, "pertaining to water" (see aquarium); a loan-translation of Greek Hydrokhoos "the water-pourer," old Greek name of this constellation.

Aquarians were a former Christian sect that used water instead of wine at the Lord's Supper. Age of Aquarius (1940) is an astrological epoch supposed to have begun in the 1960s, embodying the traits of this sign and characterized by world peace and human brotherhood. The term and the concept probably got a boost in popular use when An Aquarian Exposition was used as the sub-name of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair (1969).
characteristic: adjective and noun both first attested 1660s, from character + -istic on model of Greek kharakteristikos. Earlier in the adjectival sense was characteristical (1620s). Related: Characteristically (1640s). Characteristics "distinctive traits" also attested from 1660s.
Charlie: masc. proper name, familiar form of Charles (also see -y (3)); 1965 in Vietnam War U.S. military slang for "Vietcong, Vietcong soldier," probably suggested by Victor Charlie, military communication code for V.C. (as abbreviation of Viet Cong), perhaps strengthened by World War II slang use of Charlie for Japanese soldiers, which itself is probably an extension of the 1930s derogatory application of Charlie to any Asian man, from fictional Chinese detective Charlie Chan.

Other applications include "a night watchman" (1812); "a goatee beard" (1834, from portraits of King Charles I and his contemporaries); "a fox" (1857); "a woman's breasts" (1874); "an infantryman's pack" (World War I); and "a white man" (Mr. Charlie), 1960, American English, from black slang.
Detroit: city in Michigan, U.S., from French détroit, literally "straits," from Old French destreit (12c.), from Latin districtum, neuter of districtus. French fort built there 1701. By 1918 the city name was synonymous with "U.S. automobile manufacturing."
flatter (v.): c. 1200, flateren, flaterien, "seek to please or gratify (someone) by undue praise, praise insincerely, beguile with pleasing words," from Old French flater "to deceive; caress, fondle; prostrate, throw, fling (to the ground)" (13c.), probably from a Germanic source, perhaps from Proto-Germanic *flata- "flat" (see flat (adj.)).

"Of somewhat doubtful etymology" [OED]. Liberman calls it "one of many imitative verbs beginning with fl- and denoting unsteady or light, repeated movement" (for example flicker, flutter). If it is related to flat the notion could be either "caress with the flat of the hand, stroke, pet," or "throw oneself flat on the ground" (in fawning adoration). The -er ending is unusual for an English verb from French; perhaps it is by influence of shimmer, flicker, etc., or from flattery.

Meaning "give a pleasing but false impression to" is from late 14c. Sense of "show (something) to best advantage" is from 1580s, originally of portraits. Related: Flattered; flattering.
kit-cat: club founded by Whig politicians in London, 1703; so called from Christopher ("Kit") Catling, keeper of the tavern on Shire Lane, near Temple Bar, in which the club first met. Meaning "a size of portrait less than half length" (1754), supposedly is because the dining room in which portraits of club members hung was too low for half-length portraits.
penguin (n.): 1570s, originally used of the great auk of Newfoundland (now extinct), shift in meaning to the Antarctic bird (which looks something like it, found by Drake in Magellan's Straits in 1578) is from 1580s. Of unknown origin, though often asserted to be from Welsh pen "head" (see pen-) + gwyn "white" (see Gwendolyn), but Barnhart says the proposed formation is not proper Welsh. The great auk had a large white patch between its bill and eye. The French and Breton versions of the word ultimately are from English.
Prince Albert: "piercing that consists of a ring which goes through the urethra and out behind the glans," mid-20c., supposedly so-called from the modern legend that Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819-1861), prince consort of Queen Victoria, had one.

But the term seems to be not older than bodyart maven Doug Malloy and his circle, and the stories about the prince may be fantastical inventions. Perhaps there is some connection with Albert underworld/pawnshop slang for "gold watch chain" (1861), which probably is from the common portraits of the prince in which he is shown with a conspicuous gold watch chain. Many fashions in male dress made popular by him bore his name late 19c.
silhouette (n.): 1798, from French silhouette, in reference to Étienne de Silhouette (1709-1767), French minister of finance in 1759. Usually said to be so called because it was an inexpensive way of making a likeness of someone, a derisive reference to Silhouette's petty economies to finance the Seven Years' War, which were unpopular among the nobility. But other theories are that it refers to his brief tenure in office, or the story that he decorated his chateau with such portraits.
Silhouette portraits were so called simply because they came into fashion in the year (1759) in which M. de Silhouette was minister. [A. Brachet, "An Etymological Dictionary of the French Language," transl. G.W. Kitchin, 1882]
Used of any sort of dark outline or shadow in profile from 1843. The verb is recorded from 1876, from the noun. The family name is a Frenchified form of a Basque surname; Arnaud de Silhouette, the finance minister's father, was from Biarritz in the French Basque country; the southern Basque form of the name would be Zuloeta or Zulueta, which contains the suffix -eta "abundance of" and zulo "hole" (possibly here meaning "cave").
steno-: before vowels sten-, word-forming element meaning "narrow," from comb. form of Greek stenos "narrow, strait," as a noun "straits of the sea, narrow strip of land," also metaphorically, "close, confined; scanty, petty," from PIE *sten- "narrow."
strait (n.): mid-14c., "narrow, confined space or place," specifically of bodies of water from late 14c., from Old French estreit, estrait "narrow part, pass, defile, narrow passage of water," noun use of adjective (see strait (adj.)). Sense of "difficulty, plight" (usually straits) first recorded 1540s. Strait and narrow "conventional or wisely limited way of life" is recorded from mid-14c. (compare straight (adj.2)).
vandyke (n.): "short, pointed beard," 1894, from the style shown on portraits by Flemish painter Anton Van Dyck (1599-1641); earlier "a type of collar with a deep cut edge" (1755) also from a style depicted in his paintings.