英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

aluminium: aluminium: [19] Aluminium comes from a coinage by the English chemist Sir Humphry Davy, who discovered the metal. His first suggestion was alumium, which he put forward in Volume 98 of the Transactions of the Royal Society 1808: ‘Had I been so fortunate as … to have procured the metallic substances I was in search of, I should have proposed for them the names of silicium, alumium, zirconium, and glucium’.

He based it on Latin alūmen ‘alum’ (alum is a sulphate of aluminium, and the word alum, a 14th-century borrowing from French, derives ultimately from alūmen; alumina is an oxide of aluminium, and the word alumina is a modern Latin formation based on alūmen, which entered English at the end of the 18th century); and alūmen may be linked with Latin alūta ‘skins dried for making leather, using alum’.

Davy soon changed his mind, however, and in 1812 put forward the term aluminum – which remains the word used in American English to this day. British English, though, has preferred the form aluminium, which was mooted contemporaneously with aluminum on grounds of classical ‘correctness’: ‘Aluminium, for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound’, Quarterly Review 1812.
=> alum
count: count: There are two distinct words count in English. Count ‘enumerate’ [14] comes ultimately from Latin computāre ‘calculate’ (source of English compute). It came into English from Old French conter, which had, via the notion of ‘adding up and rendering an account’, developed the sense ‘tell a story’ (preserved in English in the derivatives account and recount).

The derivative counter [14] began life as medieval Latin computātōrium ‘place of accounts’, and entered English via Anglo- Norman counteour. Its modern sense ‘surface for transactions in a shop’ does not seem to have become firmly established until the early 19th century, although it was applied to similar objects in banks from the late 17th century. The noble title count [16] comes via Old French conte from Latin comes, which originally meant ‘companion, attendant’ (it was a compound noun, formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and īre ‘go’, and so its underlying etymological meaning is ‘one who goes with another’).

In the Roman empire it was used for the governor of a province, and in Anglo- Norman it was used to translate English earl. It has never been used as an English title, but the feminine form countess was adopted for the wife of an earl in the 12th century (and viscount was borrowed from Anglo-Norman viscounte in the 14th century). The Latin derivative comitātus was originally a collective noun denoting a ‘group of companions’, but with the development of meaning in comes it came to mean first ‘office of a governor’ and latterly ‘area controlled by a governor’.

In England, this area was the ‘shire’, and so county [14], acquired via Anglo-Norman counte, came to be a synonym for ‘shire’. Another descendant of Latin comes is concomitant [17], from the present participle of late Latin concomitārī.
=> account, compute, putative, recount; concomitant, county
emotion: emotion: [16] The semantic notion underlying emotion – of applying ‘physical movement’ metaphorically to ‘strong feeling’ – is an ancient one: Latin used the phrase mōtus animā, literally ‘movement of the spirit’, in this sense. Emotion itself is a post-classical Latin formation; it comes ultimately from Vulgar Latin *exmovēre, literally ‘move out’, hence ‘excite’, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and movēre ‘move’ (source of English move).

In French this became émouvoir, and English borrowed its derived noun émotion, but at first used it only in the literal sense ‘moving, agitation’ (‘The waters continuing in the caverns … caused the emotion or earthquake’, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society 1758) and the metaphorically extended ‘political agitation or disturbance’ (a sense now preserved only in émeute [19], another derivative of French émouvoir).

It was not until the late 17th century that the sense ‘strong feeling’ really came to the fore. The back-formation emote is a 20th-century phenomenon, of US origin.
=> émeute, move
fence: fence: [14] Fence is short for defence, and indeed until the 16th century meant ‘defence’ (‘Yet, for [that is, despite] the fence that he could make, she struck it from his hand’, Felon Sowe Rokeby 1500). Of its present-day meanings, ‘enclosing structure’ (originally a ‘defence’ against intruders) and ‘sword-fighting’ (originally the use of a sword for ‘self-defence’, now used only as a verb) developed in the 16th century.

The sense ‘dealer in stolen property’ came along in the 17th century; it arose from the notion that such transactions are carried out under the cover, or ‘defence’, of secrecy. Similarly, fend [13] and fender [15] came by loss of the initial syllable from defend.
=> defence, fend, fender
penny: penny: [OE] Penny comes from a prehistoric Germanic *panninggaz, which also produced German pfennig and Dutch and Swedish penning. It has been speculated that this was derived from *pand- ‘pledge, security’, which also produced English pawn – in which case it would denote etymologically a ‘coin used in transactions involving the pledging of a sum as security’.
=> pawn
family (n.): early 15c., "servants of a household," from Latin familia "family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household," thus also "members of a household, the estate, property; the household, including relatives and servants," from famulus "servant, slave," which is of unknown origin.

The Latin word rarely appears in the sense "parents with their children," for which domus (see domestic (adj.)) was used. Derivatives of famulus include famula "serving woman, maid," famulanter "in the manner of a servant," famulitas "servitude," familiaris "of one's household, private," familiaricus "of household slaves," familiaritas "close friendship."

In English, sense of "collective body of persons who form one household under one head and one domestic government, including parents, children, and servants, and as sometimes used even lodgers or boarders" [Century Dictionary] is from 1540s. From 1660s as "parents with their children, whether they dwell together or not," also in a more general sense, "persons closely related by blood, including aunts, uncles, cousins;" earlier "those who descend from a common progenitor, a house, a lineage" (1580s). Hence, "any group of things classed as kindred based on common distinguishing characteristics" (1620s); as a scientific classification, between genus and order, from 1753.
I have certainly known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots. [William Butler Yeats, "Autobiography"]
Replaced Old English hiwscipe, hiwan "family," cognate with Old Norse hjon "one of the household; married couple, man and wife; domestic servant," and with Old High German hiwo "husband," hiwa "wife," also with Lithuanian šeimyna "family," Gothic haims "village," Old English ham "village, home" (see home (n.)).

As an adjective from c. 1600; with the meaning "suitable for a family," by 1807. Family values first recorded 1966. Phrase in a family way "pregnant" is from 1796. Family circle is 1809; family man "man devoted to wife and children, man inclined to lead a domestic life" is 1856 (earlier it meant "thief," 1788, from family in a slang sense of "the fraternity of thieves"). Family-tree "graph of ancestral relations" attested from 1752:
He was dressed in his best Coat, which had served him in the same Capacity before my Birth, and possibly, might be but little short in Antiquity, to the Root of his third Family Tree; and indeed, he made a venerable Figure in it. ["A Genuine Account of the Life and Transactions of Howell ap David Price, Gentleman of Wales," London, 1752]

Happy family an assemblage of animals of diverse habits and propensities living amicably, or at least quietly, together in one cage. [Century Dictionary, 1902]
The phrase is attested from 1844.
fence (n.): early 14c., "action of defending, resistance; means of protection, fortification," shortening of defens (see defense). The same pattern also yielded fend, fender; and obsolete fensive "defensive" (late 16c.). Spelling alternated between -c- and -s- in Middle English. Sense of "enclosure" is first recorded mid-15c. on notion of "that which serves as a defense." Sense of "dealer in stolen goods" is thieves' slang, first attested c. 1700, from notion of such transactions taking place under defense of secrecy.

To be figuratively on the fence "uncommitted" is from 1828, perhaps from the notion of spectators at a fight, or a simple literal image: "A man sitting on the top of a fence, can jump down on either side with equal facility." [Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848].
hundred (n.): Old English hundred "the number of 100, a counting of 100," from Proto-Germanic *hundrath (cognates: Old Norse hundrað, German hundert); first element is Proto-Germanic *hundam "hundred" (cognate with Gothic hund, Old High German hunt), from PIE *km-tom "hundred," reduced from *dkm-tom- (cognates: Sanskrit satam, Avestan satem, Greek hekaton, Latin centum, Lithuanian simtas, Old Church Slavonic suto, Old Irish cet, Breton kant "hundred"), from *dekm- "ten" (see ten).

Second element is Proto-Germanic *rath "reckoning, number" (as in Gothic raþjo "a reckoning, account, number," garaþjan "to count;" see read (v.)). The common word for the number in Old English was simple hund, and Old English also used hund-teontig.
In Old Norse hundrath meant 120, that is the long hundred of six score, and at a later date, when both the six-score hundred and the five-score hundred were in use, the old or long hundred was styled hundrath tolf-roett ... meaning "duodecimal hundred," and the new or short hundred was called hundrath ti-rætt, meaning "decimal hundred." "The Long Hundred and its use in England" was discussed by Mr W.H. Stevenson, in 1889, in the Archcæological Review (iv. 313-27), where he stated that amongst the Teutons, who longest preserved their native customs unimpaired by the influence of Latin Christianity, the hundred was generally the six-score hundred. The short hundred was introduced among the Northmen in the train of Christianity. ["Transactions" of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 1907]
Meaning "division of a county or shire with its own court" (still in some British place names and U.S. state of Delaware) was in Old English and probably represents 100 hides of land. The Hundred Years War (which ran intermittently from 1337 to 1453) was first so called in 1874. The original Hundred Days was the period between Napoleon's restoration and his final abdication in 1815.
midget (n.): as a type of tiny biting insect, 1839, American English, from midge, perhaps with diminutive suffix -et.
Dr. Webster is in error in saying the word "midge" is "not in use" at the present day. In the neighboring Green mountain districts, one or more most annoying species of Simulium that there abound, are daily designated in common conversation as the midges, or, as the name is often corrupted, the midgets. From Dr. Harris' treatise it appears that the same name is in popular use for the same insects in Maine. The term is limited in this country, we believe, exclusively to those minute insects, smaller than the musketoe, which suck the blood of other animals. ["Transactions of the New-York State Agricultural Society," vol. VI, Albany, 1847]
Transferred sense of "very small person" is attested by 1854. It is also noted mid-19c. as a pet form of Margaret.
transaction (n.): mid-15c., "the adjustment of a dispute, a negotiated agreement, management or settlement of an affair," from Old French transaccion "exchange, transaction," from Late Latin transactionem (nominative transactio) "an agreement, accomplishment," noun of action from past participle stem of transigere "stab through; accomplish, perform, drive or carry through, come to a settlement," from trans- "through" (see trans-) + agere "to drive" (see act (v.)). Meaning "a piece of business" is attested from 1640s. Related: Transactions; transactional.
warranty (n.): mid-14c., legal term for various types of clauses in real estate transactions, from Anglo-French and Old North French warantie "protection, defense, safeguard" (Old French garantie), from warant (see warrant (n.)).
cryobank: "A store or stock of biological material kept at extremely low temperatures; especially a sperm bank", 1970s; earliest use found in Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
non-elastic: "Not elastic, lacking in elasticity, inelastic. Also figurative : inflexible, fixed on a purpose", Early 18th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From non- + elastic.
e-tailer: "A retailer selling goods via electronic transactions on the Internet", 1990s: blend of e-² and retailer.
gangliated: "= ganglionated", Early 19th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From gangli- + -ated.
risorius: "More fully risorius muscle. A flat muscle originating from the fascia of the masseter muscle and inserting into the corner of the mouth, which it draws laterally, as in smiling", Mid 18th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From post-classical Latin risorius from post-classical Latin risorius ridiculous, laughing from classical Latin rīsor laugher (from rīs-, past participial stem of rīdēre to laugh + -or) + -ius, suffix forming adjectives.
monophyllous: "Of a plant: having a single leaf or leaflet. Also (of a tree's canopy): consisting of a single layer of leaves. Now rare", Mid 18th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From mono- + -phyllous.
periotic: "The bone forming the otic capsule of the inner ear, consisting of fused prootic, epiotic, and opisthotic bones", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From peri- + otic.
geniculum: "Originally: a node or joint (in the stem of a plant, the antenna of an arthropod, etc.). In later use also: a feature resembling a bent knee (in an animal, plant, shell, etc.); an angle in a structure, or a feature situated at such an angle", Early 18th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Partly (i) from classical Latin geniculum knee, small knee, knot or joint in the stem of a plant from genū + -culum;.
oestrogen therapy: "Treatment with oestrogen; oestrogen replacement therapy", 1940s; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
nuciform: "Having the shape or form of a nut; specifically (of soil texture) characterized by rounded aggregates of particles resembling nuts", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. From nuci- + -form.
orolingual: "Of or relating to the mouth and tongue", Late 19th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From oro- + -lingual.
paediatrist: "= paediatrician", Late 19th cent.; earliest use found in Transactions of the American Pediatric Society. From paediatr- + -ist.
monospermous: "Of a fruit or flower: containing or producing only one seed. Of a plant: having such fruits or flowers", Late 17th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From scientific Latin monospermus + -ous.
ovarium: " Anatomy and Zoology = ovary", Mid 17th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From post-classical Latin ovarium from classical Latin ōvum + -ārium. Compare post-classical Latin ovaria (feminine) the ovary of a bird, and classical Latin ōvārius (masculine) egg-keeper.
non-periodic: "Characterized by or exhibiting a lack of periodicity; without regular recurrence", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From non- + periodic.
quinquefid: "Especially of a leaf, calyx, etc.: divided in five sections to about halfway; five-cleft", Early 18th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From post-classical Latin quinquifidus divided into five, (of a leaf) divided into five sections from classical Latin quīnque- + -fīdus.
methylamine: "Each of the three compounds that can be formed by replacing one or more of the hydrogen atoms in ammonia with a methyl group or groups; especially CH3NH2 (monomethylamine), a colourless, flammable gas with a fishy or ammonia-like odour", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From French méthylamine from methyl + amine.
ajutage: "Originally: the outlet tube or mouthpiece of a fountain. Later also: a nozzle or mouthpiece attached to a pipe or aperture so as to facilitate the flow of liquid out of it or to determine the character of the flow", Late 17th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From French ajutage nozzle or mouthpiece attached to a pipe or aperture so as to facilitate the flow of liquid out of it or to determine the character of the flow from ajuster + -age. In some forms probably influenced by association with formations in classical Latin ad- ad-.
oliva: " Zoology (In form Oliva) a genus of marine gastropod molluscs of the family Olividae, characterized by glossy cylindrical shells; (also oliva; more fully oliva shell) a member of this genus; an olive shell", Early 19th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Ovula: "A genus of gastropod molluscs related to the cowries (family Ovulidae), native especially to the tropical Pacific Ocean, some species of which have a pure white oval shell; (also ovula) a member of this genus. Chiefly attributive in ovula shell", Early 19th cent.; earliest use found in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. From scientific Latin Ovula, genus name from post-classical Latin ovulum.
acta: "With plural concord. A register of transactions, decrees, proceedings, etc.; official records", Early 19th cent.; earliest use found in The Eclectic Review. From classical Latin ācta, plural of āctum.
omi (1): "In early imperial Japan: (a hereditary title for) the head of clan or family that claimed imperial ancestry, who usually also served as a high-ranking official in the Yamato court", Late 19th century; earliest use found in Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. From Japanese omi clan chieftain (720 in Nihon-shoki, the Chronicles of Japan), fused compound of uncertain origin. Perhaps a contraction of ō-mi (from ō- great + -mi revered being, god (from (i)mi, nominalized stem of imu to shun)), but frequently apprehended as from ō- + mi body, person.