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conversation [conversation 词源字典]: conversation: [14] Latin convertere meant ‘turn round, transform’. It was a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and vertere ‘turn’ (source of English verse, version, and vertigo). It has spawned a variety of English words, its most direct descendant being convert [13]. Its past participle conversus produced the noun converse ‘opposite’ [16], but this should not be confused with the verb converse ‘talk’ [14], which came via quite a different route.

Latin vertere had a specialized form, vertāre, denoting repeated action. From it came versārī ‘live, occupy oneself’, which, with the addition of the com- prefix, produced conversārī ‘live, dwell, associate or communicate with others’. This passed via Old French converser into English, but at first both it and its derivative conversation were limited semantically to the notion of ‘dwelling’ and ‘social life’; the specific modern sense ‘talk’ was not brought into play until the late 16th century.
=> convert, verse, version[conversation etymology, conversation origin, 英语词源]
pole: pole: There are two separate words pole in English. Pole ‘long thin piece of wood’ [OE] comes from a pre- historic Germanic *pāl- (source also of German pfahl, Dutch paal, and Swedish påla). This was borrowed from Latin pālus ‘stake’, from which English gets pale ‘stake’. Pole ‘extremity’ [14] was acquired from Latin polus, which in turn went back to Greek pólos ‘axis of a sphere’. This was a descendant of Indo-European *qwolo- ‘turn round’ (source of English wheel), and has also given English pulley. The derivative polar [16] is an anglicization of the modern Latin coinage polāris.
=> pale; polar, pulley, wheel
sconce: sconce: Effectively, English now only has one word sconce in general use, although others have come and gone in the past. That is the noun meaning ‘candlestick’ or ‘wall bracket for a light’ [14]. It originally denoted a ‘lantern’ or ‘covered candlestick’, and came via Old French esconse from medieval Latin absconsa. This was short for laterna absconsa, literally ‘hidden lantern’; absconsa was the feminine past participle of Latin abscondere ‘hide’ (source of English abscond [16]), a compound verb formed from the prefix ab- ‘away’ and condere ‘put, stow’.

It may be that sconce ‘lantern, lamp’ lay behind the now obsolete slang sconce ‘head’ [16], and there are grounds for believing that this in turn inspired the old university slang term sconce ‘penalty of drinking a large amount of beer for a breach of the rules’ [17] (the underlying notion being of a poll tax or ‘head’ tax). A fourth sconce, now altogether defunct, was a military term for a ‘small fort’ [16].

This was borrowed from Dutch schans, which came via Middle High German schanze from Italian scanso ‘defence’. This in turn was a derivative of the verb scansare ‘turn aside, ward off’, which was descended from Vulgar Latin *excampsāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and campsāre ‘turn round, sail by’. A memory of the word survives in English, however, in the derived verb ensconce [16] (etymologically ‘hide behind a fortification’).
=> abscond; ensconce
girandole (n.): 1630s, a type of fireworks; 1769 as a branched holder for candles; 1825 as a type of earring or pendant, from French girandole, from Italian girandola, diminutive of giranda "a revolving jet," from Latin gyrandus, gerundive of gyrare "to turn round in a circle, revolve" (see gyration). Also in English in the Italian form.
gyre (v.): mid-15c., "turn (something) away (from something else); rotate" (transitive), "cause to revolve;" also "go in a circle, turn round" (intransitive), from Old French girer and directly from Latin gyrare, verb derived from gyrus "circle, circular course, round, ring" (see gyre (n.)). Related: Gyred; gyring.
pole (n.2): "ends of Earth's axis," late 14c., from Old French pole or directly from Latin polus "end of an axis;" also "the sky, the heavens" (a sense sometimes used in English from 16c.), from Greek polos "pivot, axis of a sphere, the sky," from PIE *kwol- "turn round," from root *kwel- (1) "wheel; turn, roll around" (see cycle (n.)).
return (v.): early 14c., "to come back, come or go back to a former position" (intransitive), from Old French retorner "turn back, turn round, return" (Modern French retourner), from re- "back" (see re-) + torner "to turn" (see turn (v.)). Transitive sense of "report officially" is early 15c.; "to send back" is mid-15c.; that of "to turn back" is from c. 1500. Meaning "to give in repayment" is 1590s; that of "give back, restore" c. 1600. Related: Returned; returning.
rotation (n.): 1550s, from Latin rotationem (nominative rotatio) "a turning about in a circle," noun of action from past participle stem of rotare "turn round, revolve, whirl about, roll," from PIE *ret- "to run, roll" (see rotary).
round (v.): late 14c., "to make round," from round (adj.). Sense of "make a circuit round" is from 1590s. Sense of "bring to completeness" is from c. 1600; meaning "to approximate (a number)" is from 1934. Meaning "turn round and face, turn on and assault" is from 1882. Round out "fill up" is from 1856. Related: Rounded; rounding.
topsy-turvy (adv.): 1520s, "but prob. in popular use from an earlier period" [OED]; compare top over terve "to fall over" (mid-15c.); likely from tops, plural of top (n.1) "highest point" + obsolete terve "turn upside down, topple over," from Old English tearflian "to roll over, overturn," from Proto-Germanic *terbanan (cognates: Old High German zerben "to turn round"). Century Dictionary calls it "A word which, owing to its popular nature, its alliterative type, and to ignorance of its origin, leading to various perversions made to suggest some plausible origin, has undergone, besides the usual variations of spelling, extraordinary modifications of form." It lists 31 variations. As an adjective from 1610s.
trend (v.): 1590s, "to run or bend in a certain direction" (of rivers, coasts, etc.), from Middle English trenden "to roll about, turn, revolve," from Old English trendan "turn round, revolve, roll," from Proto-Germanic *trandijan (cognates: Old English trinde "round lump, ball," Old Frisian trind, Middle Low German trint "round," Middle Low German trent "ring, boundary," Dutch trent "circumference," Danish trind "round"); origin and connections outside Germanic uncertain. Sense of "have a general tendency" (used of events, opinions, etc.) is first recorded 1863, from the nautical sense. Related: Trended; trending.
varve (n.): "annual deposit of silt in a lake bed," 1912, from Swedish varv "turn, layer," related to Old Norse hverfa, Old English hwerfan "to turn round" (see wharf).
wharf (n.): late Old English hwearf "shore, bank where ships can tie up," earlier "dam, embankment," from Proto-Germanic *hwarfaz (cognates: Middle Low German werf "mole, dam, wharf," German Werft "shipyard, dockyard"); related to Old English hwearfian "to turn," perhaps in a sense implying "busy activity," from PIE root *kwerp- "to turn, revolve" (cognates: Old Norse hverfa "to turn round," German werben "to enlist, solicit, court, woo," Gothic hvairban "to wander," Greek kartos "wrist," Sanskrit surpam "winnowing fan"). Wharf rat is from 1812 as "type of rat common on ships and docks;" extended sense "person who hangs around docks" is recorded from 1836.