英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

busy [busy 词源字典]: busy: [OE] Busy goes back to an Old English bisig, which also meant ‘occupied’. Apart from Dutch bezig, it has no apparent relatives in any Indo-European language, and it is not known where it came from. The sense ‘inquisitive’, from which we get busybody [16], developed in the late 14th century. Business was originally simply a derivative formed from busy by adding the suffix -ness.

In Old English it meant ‘anxiety, uneasiness’, reflecting a sense not recorded for the adjective itself until the 14th century. The modern commercial sense seems to have originated in the 15th century. (The modern formation busyness, reflecting the fact that business can no longer be used simply for the ‘state of being busy’, is 19th-century.)
=> pidgin[busy etymology, busy origin, 英语词源]
disease: disease: [14] Disease and malaise are parallel formations: both denote etymologically an ‘impairment of ease or comfort’. Disease comes from Old French desaise, a compound formed from the prefix dis- ‘not, lacking’ and aise ‘ease’, and in fact at first meant literally ‘discomfort’ or ‘uneasiness’. It was only towards the end of the 14th century that this sense began to narrow down in English to ‘sickness’. (Malaise was borrowed from French malaise, an Old French formation from mal ‘bad’ and aise.)
=> ease, malaise
fear (n.): Middle English fere, from Old English fær "calamity, sudden danger, peril, sudden attack," from Proto-Germanic *feraz "danger" (cognates: Old Saxon far "ambush," Old Norse far "harm, distress, deception," Dutch gevaar, German Gefahr "danger"), from PIE *per- "to try, risk," a form of verbal root *per- (3) "to lead, pass over" (cognates: Latin periculum "trial, risk, danger;" Greek peria "trial, attempt, experience," Old Irish aire "vigilance," Gothic ferja "watcher"); related to *per- (1) "forward, through" (see per).

Sense of "state of being afraid, uneasiness caused by possible danger" developed by late 12c. Some Old English words for "fear" as we now use it were fyrhto, fyrhto; as a verb, ondrædan. Meaning "feeling of dread and reverence for God" is from c. 1400. To put the fear of God (into someone) "intimidate, cause to cower" is by 1888, from the common religious phrase; the extended use was often at first in colonial contexts:
Thus then we seek to put "the fear of God" into the natives at the point of the bayonet, and excuse ourselves for the bloody work on the plea of the benefits which we intend to confer afterwards. [Felix Adler, "The Religion of Duty," 1905]
fidget (n.): 1670s, as the fidget "uneasiness," later the fidgets, from a verb fidge "move restlessly" (16c., surviving longest in Scottish), perhaps from Middle English fiken "to fidget, hasten" (see fike (v.)).
qualm (n.): Old English cwealm (West Saxon) "death, murder, slaughter; disaster; plague; torment," utcualm (Anglian) "utter destruction," probably related to cwellan "to kill, murder, execute," cwelan "to die" (see quell). Sense softened to "feeling of faintness" 1520s; figurative meaning "uneasiness, doubt" is from 1550s; that of "scruple of conscience" is 1640s.

Evidence of a direct path from the Old English to the modern senses is wanting, but it is plausible, via the notion of "fit of sickness." The other suggested etymology, less satisfying, is to take the "fit of uneasiness" sense from Dutch kwalm "steam, vapor, mist" (cognate with German Qualm "smoke, vapor, stupor"), which also might be ultimately from the same Germanic root as quell.
scruple (n.): "moral misgiving, pang of conscience," late 14c., from Old French scrupule (14c.), from Latin scrupulus "uneasiness, anxiety, pricking of conscience," literally "small sharp stone," diminutive of scrupus "sharp stone or pebble," used figuratively by Cicero for a cause of uneasiness or anxiety, probably from the notion of having a pebble in one's shoe. The word in the more literal Latin sense of "small unit of weight or measurement" is attested in English from late 14c.
solicitude (n.): early 15c., from Middle French solicitude (Modern French sollicitude), and directly from Latin sollicitudinem (nominative solicitudo) "anxiety, uneasiness of mind," noun of state from past participle stem of solicitare (see solicit).
uneasy (adj.): late 13c., "not comforting, causing trouble," from un- (1) "not" + easy (adj.). Meaning "disturbed in mind" is attested from 1670s. Related: Uneasily; uneasiness.
willies (n.): "spell of nervousness," 1896, perhaps from the woollies, a dialectal term for "nervous uneasiness," probably in reference to the itchiness of wool garments.