英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

fortnight [fortnight 词源字典]: fortnight: [13] The ancient Germanic peoples recorded the passing of time in units of ‘nights’ rather than, as we do, in units of ‘days’: hence a period of two weeks was in Old English fēowertīene niht, or ‘fourteen nights’. By early Middle English times this was starting to be contracted to the single word fortnight. (The parallel sennight ‘week’ [15] – literally ‘seven nights’ – survived dialectally into the 20th century.)
=> fourteen[fortnight etymology, fortnight origin, 英语词源]
level: level: [14] The Latin word for a ‘balance’ or ‘scales’ was libra (it has given English Libra the zodiacal sign [14] and also lies behind many terms for units of measurement, including litre and the abbreviation lb for ‘pound’). Its diminutive form was lībella, which denoted an ‘instrument for checking horizontality’, and hence a ‘horizontal line’. It passed into Old French as livel (which in modern French has become niveau ‘level’), and English took it over as level.
=> litre
litre: litre: [19] Litre goes back to Greek lītrā, a term which denoted a Sicilian monetary unit. This found its way via medieval Latin litrā into French as litron, where it was used for a unit of capacity. By the 18th century it had rather fallen out of use, but in 1793 it was revived, in the form litre, as the name for the basic unit of capacity in the new metric system.

It is first recorded in English in 1810. The Greek word was descended from an earlier, unrecorded *līthrā, which was borrowed into Latin as lībra ‘pound’. This is the source of various modern terms for units of weight, and hence of currency, including Italian lira and the now disused French livre, and it also lies behind the English symbol £ for ‘pound’.
=> level, lira
airborne (adj.): 1640s, "carried through the air," from air (n.1) + borne. Of military units, from 1937.
catalysis (n.): 1650s, "dissolution," from Latinized form of Greek katalysis "dissolution, a dissolving" (of governments, military units, etc.), from katalyein "to dissolve," from kata- "down" (or "completely"), see cata-, + lyein "to loosen" (see lose). Chemical sense "change caused by an agent which itself remains unchanged" is attested from 1836, introduced by Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius (1779-1848).
crown (n.): early 12c., "royal crown," from Anglo-French coroune, Old French corone (13c., Modern French couronne), from Latin corona "crown," originally "wreath, garland," related to Greek korone "anything curved, kind of crown." Old English used corona, directly from Latin.

Extended to coins bearing the imprint of a crown (early 15c.), especially the British silver 5-shilling piece. Also monetary units in Iceland, Sweden (krona), Norway, Denmark (krone), and formerly in German Empire and Austria-Hungary (krone). Meaning "top of the skull" is from c. 1300. Crown-prince is 1791, a translation of German kronprinz.
decimate (v.): c. 1600, in reference to the practice of punishing mutinous military units by capital execution of one in every 10, by lot; from Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare (see decimation). Killing one in ten, chosen by lots, from a rebellious city or a mutinous army was a common punishment in classical times. The word has been used (incorrectly, to the irritation of pedants) since 1660s for "destroy a large portion of." Related: Decimated; decimating.
ersatz (adj.): 1875, from German Ersatz "units of the army reserve," literally "compensation, replacement, substitute," from ersetzen "to replace," from Old High German irsezzen, from ir-, unaccented variant of ur- (see ur-) + setzen "to set" (see set (v.)). As a noun, from 1892.
foot (n.): "terminal part of the leg of a vertebrate animal," Old English fot "foot," from Proto-Germanic *fot (cognates: Old Frisian fot, Old Saxon fot, Old Norse fotr, Danish fod, Swedish fot, Dutch voet, Old High German fuoz, German Fuß, Gothic fotus "foot"), from PIE root *ped- (1) "a foot" (cognates: Avestan pad-; Sanskrit pad-, accusative padam "foot;" Greek pos, Attic pous, genitive podos; Latin pes, genitive pedis "foot;" Lithuanian padas "sole," peda "footstep"). Plural form feet is an instance of i-mutation.

The linear measure was in Old English (the exact length has varied over time), this being considered the length of a man's foot; a unit of measure used widely and anciently. In this sense the plural is often foot. The current inch and foot are implied from measurements in 12c. English churches (Flinders Petrie, "Inductive Metrology"), but the most usual length of a "foot" in medieval England was the foot of 13.2 inches common throughout the ancient Mediterranean. The Anglo-Saxon foot apparently was between the two. All three correspond to units used by the Romans, and possibly all three lengths were picked up by the Anglo-Saxons from the Romano-Britons. "That the Saxon units should descend to mediæval times is most probable, as the Normans were a ruling, and not a working, class." [Flinders Petrie, 1877]. The medieval Paul's Foot (late 14c.) was a measuring standard cut into the base of a column at the old St. Paul's cathedral in London. The metrical foot (late Old English, translating Latin pes, Greek pous in the same sense) is commonly taken to represent one rise and one fall of a foot: keeping time according to some, dancing according to others.

In Middle English also "a person" (c. 1200), hence non-foot "nobody." Meaning "bottom or lowest part of anything eminent or upright" is from c. 1200. Of a bed, grave, etc., from c. 1300. On foot "by walking" is from c. 1300. To get off on the wrong foot is from 1905 (the right foot is by 1907); to put one's best foot foremost first recorded 1849 (Shakespeare has the better foot before, 1596); Middle English had evil-foot (adv.) "through mischance, unluckily." To put one's foot in (one's) mouth "say something stupid" is attested by 1942; the expression put (one's) foot in something "make a mess of it" is from 1823. To have one foot in the grave "be near death" is from 1844. Colloquial exclamation my foot! expressing "contemptuous contradiction" [OED] is attested by 1923, probably euphemistic for my ass in the same sense, which dates to 1796 (also see eyewash).
jackboot (n.): also jack-boot, 1680s, type of large, strong cavalry boot of 17c.-18c., later a type worn by German military and para-military units in the Nazi period. From jack (n.), though the exact sense here is unclear + boot (n.1). Figurative of military oppression since 1768. Related: Jackbooted.
l.s.d.: abbreviation of British currency units, from Latin librae, soldi, denarii, Roman equivalent of "pounds, shillings, pence."
legion (n.): c. 1200, from Old French legion "Roman legion" (3,000 to 6,000 men, under Marius usually with attached cavalry), from Latin legionem (nominative legio) "body of soldiers," from legere "to choose, gather," also "to read" (see lecture (n.)).

Generalized sense of "a large number" is due to translations of allusive phrase in Mark v:9. American Legion, U.S. association of ex-servicemen, founded in 1919. Legion of Honor is French légion d'honneur, an order of distinction founded by Napoleon in 1802. Foreign Legion is French légion étrangère "body of foreign volunteers in a modern army," originally Polish, Belgian, etc. units in French army; they traditionally served in colonies or distant expeditions.
liaison (n.): 1640s, from French liaison "a union, a binding together" (13c.), from Late Latin ligationem (nominative ligatio) "a binding," from past participle stem of Latin ligare "to bind" (see ligament). Originally a cookery term for a thickening agent for sauces. Sense of "intimate relations" is from 1806. Military sense of "cooperation between branches, allies, etc." is from 1816. The noun meaning "one who is concerned with liaison of units, etc." is short for liaison officer.
modular (adj.): 1798, as a term in mathematics, from French modulaire or directly from Modern Latin modularis, from Latin modulus "a small measure" (see module). Meaning "composed of interchangeable units" first recorded 1936.
nano-: introduced 1947 (at 14th conference of the Union Internationale de Chimie) as a prefix for units of one thousand-millionth part, from Greek nanos "a dwarf." According to Watkins, this is originally "little old man," from nannos "uncle," masc. of nanna "aunt" (see nana). Earlier it was used as a prefix to mean "dwarf, dwarfish," and still in a non-scientific sense of "very small."
pheme (n.): "words as grammatical units in a language," 1906, coined by U.S. philosopher Charles S. Pierce (1839-1914), from Greek pheme "speech, voice, utterance, a speaking," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say" (see fame (n.)).
re-enforce (v.): also reenforce, 1580s, "to give fresh strength to," from re- "back, again" + enforce (v.). Originally of persons or military units; of buildings, structures, etc., attested from 1883. Related: Re-enforced; re-enforcing.
-s (1): suffix forming almost all Modern English plural nouns, gradually extended in Middle English from Old English -as, the nominative plural and accusative plural ending of certain "strong" masculine nouns (such as dæg "day," nominative/accusative plural dagas "days"). The commonest Germanic declension, traceable back to the original PIE inflection system, it is also the source of the Dutch -s plurals and (by rhotacism) Scandinavian -r plurals (such as Swedish dagar).

Much more uniform today than originally; Old English also had a numerous category of "weak" nouns that formed their plurals in -an, and other strong nouns that formed plurals with -u. Quirk and Wrenn, in their Old English grammar, estimate that 45 percent of the nouns a student will encounter will be masculine, nearly four-fifths of them with genitive singular -es and nominative/accusative plural in -as. Less than half, but still the largest chunk.

The triumphs of -'s possessives and -s plurals represent common patterns in language: using only a handful of suffixes to do many jobs (such as -ing), and the most common variant squeezing out the competition. To further muddy the waters, it's been extended in slang since 1936 to singulars (such as ducks, sweets, babes) as an affectionate or diminutive suffix.

Old English single-syllable collectives (sheep, folk) as well as weights, measures, and units of time did not use -s. The use of it in these cases began in Middle English, but the older custom is preserved in many traditional dialects (ten pound of butter; more than seven year ago; etc.).
sambo (n.2): stereotypical name for male black person (now only derogatory), 1818, American English, probably a different word from sambo (n.1); like many such words (Cuffy, Rastus, etc.) a common personal name among U.S. blacks in the slavery days (first attested 1704 in Boston), probably from an African source, such as Foulah sambo "uncle," or a similar Hausa word meaning "second son."

It could be used without conscious racism or contempt until circa World War II. When the word fell from polite usage, collateral casualties included the enormously popular children's book "The Story of Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman), which is about an East Indian child, and the Sambo's Restaurant chain, a U.S. pancake-specialty joint originally opened in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1957 (the name supposedly from a merging of the names of the founders, Sam Battistone and Newell "Bo" Bohnett, but the chain's decor and advertising leaned heavily on the book), which once counted 1,200 units coast-to-coast. Civil rights agitation against it began in 1970s and the chain collapsed, though the original restaurant still is open. Many of the defunct restaurants were taken over by rival Denny's.
tera-: prefix meaning "trillion," used in forming large units of measure (such as terabyte), officially adopted 1947, from Greek teras "marvel, monster" (see terato-).
zouave (n.): member of a French light infantry troop, 1848, from French, from Arabic Zwawa, from Berber Igawawaen, name of a Kabyle tribe in Algeria, from which the zouaves originally were recruited in 1831. The military units soon became exclusively French but served only in Algeria until 1854 and were "distinguished for their dash, intrepidity, and hardihood, and for their peculiar drill and showy Oriental uniform" [Century Dictionary]. Some Northern regiments in the American Civil War adopted the name and elements of the uniform. The women's fashionable zouave jacket (1859) also is based on the uniform.
quaternion: "A complex number of the form w + xi + yj + zk, where w, x, y, z are real numbers and i, j, k are imaginary units that satisfy certain conditions", Mid 19th century: from late Latin quaternio(n-), from Latin quarterni (see quaternary).
ommatidium: "Each of the optical units that make up the compound eye of an insect", Late 19th century: modern Latin, from Greek ommatidion, diminutive of omma, ommat- 'eye'.
crore: "Ten million; one hundred lakhs, especially of rupees, units of measurement, or people", From Hindi karoṛ, based on Sanskrit koṭi 'ten millions'.
maltose: "A sugar produced by the breakdown of starch, e.g. by enzymes found in malt and saliva. It is a disaccharide consisting of two linked glucose units", Mid 19th century: from malt + -ose².
quantal: "Composed of discrete units; varying in steps rather than continuously", Early 20th century: from quantum + -al.
zepto-: "(Used in units of measurement) denoting a factor of 10⁻²¹", Adapted from septi-, on the pattern of combining forms such as peta- and exa-.
yocto-: "(Used in units of measurement) denoting a factor of 10⁻²⁴", Adapted from octo-, on the pattern of combining forms such as peta- and exa-.