英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

a [a 词源字典]: a: [OE] The indefinite article in English is ultimately identical with the word one (as is the case, even more obviously, in other European languages – French un, German ein, and so on). The ancestor of both a(n) and one was ān, with a long vowel, but in the Old English period it was chiefly used for the numeral; where we would use a(n), the Anglo-Saxons tended not to use an article at all. Ān begins to emerge as the indefinite article in the middle of the 12th century, and it was not long before, in that relatively unemphatic linguistic environment, its vowel became weakened and shortened, giving an.

And at about the same time the distinction between an and a began to develop, although this was a slow process; until 1300 an was still often used before consonants, and right up to 1600 and beyond it was common before all words beginning with h, such as house.
=> one[a etymology, a origin, 英语词源]
an: an: [OE] The indefinite article in English is ultimately identical with the word one (as is the case, even more obviously, in other European languages – French un, German ein, and so on). The ancestor of both a(n) and one was ān, with a long vowel, but in the Old English period it was chiefly used for the numeral; where we would use a(n), the Anglo-Saxons tended not to use an article at all. Ān begins to emerge as the indefinite article in the middle of the 12th century, and it was not long before, in that relatively unemphatic linguistic environment, its vowel became weakened and shortened, giving an.

And at about the same time the distinction between an and a began to develop, although this was a slow process; until 1300 an was still often used before consonants, and right up to 1600 and beyond it was common before all words beginning with h, such as house.
=> one
bird: bird: [OE] Bird is something of a mystery word. It was not the ordinary Old English word for ‘feathered flying animal’; that was fowl. In Old English, bird meant specifically ‘young bird, nestling’. It did not begin to replace fowl as the general term until the 14th century, and the process took many hundreds of years to complete. Its source is quite unknown; it has no obvious relatives in the Germanic languages, or in any other Indo-European language.

The connotations of its original meaning have led to speculation that it is connected with breed and brood (the usual Old English form was brid, but the r and i subsequently became transposed in a process known as metathesis), but no convincing evidence for this has ever been advanced. As early as 1300, bird was used for ‘girl’, but this was probably owing to confusion with another similar Middle English word, burde, which also meant ‘young woman’.

The usage crops up from time to time in later centuries, clearly as an independent metaphorical application, but there does not really seem to be an unbroken chain of occurrences leading up to the sudden explosion in the use of bird for ‘young woman’ in the 20th century. Of other figurative applications of the word, ‘audience disapproval’ (as in ‘get the bird’) comes from the hissing of geese, and in ‘prison sentence’ bird is short for bird lime, rhyming slang for time.
bugbear: bugbear: [16] Early references to bugbear suggest that it was a sort of bug – ‘frightening creature’ – conjured up to frighten naughty children. It is usually assumed that the second element of the word simply represents the animal ‘bear’, and that the frightening creature was represented as being in the shape of a bear. The modern sense ‘source of annoyance’ developed in the late 19th century.
cheek: cheek: [OE] Old English cēace and cēoce go back respectively to prehistoric West Germanic *kǣkōn and *keukōn, but beyond that the word has no known relatives in other Indo-European languages. It has, however, produced one or two interesting offshoots. It forms the basis of the verb choke, and may be the source of chock-full (literally, ‘full up to the cheeks’); and Middle Dutch kākelen, source of English cackle [13], may be partly based on the related Middle Dutch kāke ‘jaw’. The metaphorical sense ‘impudence’ (whence cheeky) arose in the 19th century, originally as ‘insolent talk’.
=> cackle, chock-full, choke
chives: chives: [14] The Latin for ‘onion’ was cēpa. The only member of the onion family to carry a reminiscence of that name in English is chives (although it crops up too in chipolata [19], which comes from Italian cipollata ‘with onions’, a derivative of Italian cipolla ‘onion’, ultimately from Latin cēpa). The Latin word entered Old French as cive (the term civet ‘game stew’ derives from cive, such stews originally having been flavoured with green onions). It must, however, have been a northern dialect version of this, *chive, which English borrowed.
=> chipolata
construct: construct: [17] Construct comes from the present participle of Latin construere ‘pile up together, build’, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- and struere ‘pile up’ (source of English destroy and structure). English acquired the same verb somewhat earlier, in the 14th century, in the form construe.
=> construe, destroy, structure
dub: dub: English has two words dub. By far the older, ‘create a knight, name’ [11], was one of the first linguistic fruits of the Norman conquest, which was during the Middle English period to contribute such a vast number of French words to the English language. It came from Anglo- Norman duber, which was a reduced form of aduber, the Anglo-Norman version of Old French adober.

This meant ‘equip, repair, arrange’, but also specifically ‘equip with armour’, which led metaphorically to ‘confer the rank of knighthood on’. The sense ‘arrange’ has remained in use in various technical areas up to the present time, and its application to the dressing of leather with grease formed the basis of the noun dubbin ‘mixture of oil and tallow for softening and waterproofing leather’ [18]. Dub ‘insert soundtrack’ [20] is a shortened version of double.
=> dubbin; double
fatigue: fatigue: [17] In English a relatively formal term, fatigue goes back ultimately to a Latin expression roughly equivalent to the English notion of having ‘had it up to here’. It was borrowed from French fatiguer, a descendant of Latin fatigāre ‘tire’. This appears to have been related to the adverb affatim ‘sufficiently’, suggesting that underlying fatigāre was the idea of having ‘had enough’. The derivative indefatigable ‘tireless’ [16] comes from Latin indēfatigābilis.
intend: intend: [14] The Latin verb intendere (a compound formed from the prefix in- ‘towards’ and tendere ‘stretch’) had a variety of metaphorical meanings, some of which have come through into English. Principal among them was ‘form a plan or purpose’, an extension of an earlier ‘direct or ‘stretch’ one’s thoughts towards something’, which has given English intend and the derived intention [14].

The noun intent [13] belongs with this group too, but the adjective intent [17] looks back to the earlier ‘direct one’s mind towards a particular thing’, and intense [14] comes from the even more literal ‘stretched tight’. A medieval Latin addition to the meanings of intendere was ‘understand’, which English adopted in the 14th century. It had largely died out in English by the end of the 17th century, but it has persisted in the Romance languages, and has even developed further to ‘hear’ (which is what French entendre means).
=> intense, intention, tense
jaw: jaw: [14] Given that it is a fairly important part of the body, our knowledge of the origins of the word for ‘jaw’ is surprisingly sketchy. The Old English terms for ‘jaw’ were céace (modern English cheek) and ceafl (ancestor of modern English jowl), and when jaw first turns up towards the end of the 14th century it is in the form iowe. This strongly suggests a derivation from Old French joe ‘cheek’, but the connection has never been established for certain, and many etymologists consider it more likely that it is related to chew.
limerick: limerick: [19] The best-known writer of limericks is of course Edward Lear, but ironically the term limerick was not born until after Lear was dead. It is first recorded in 1896, and is said to have come from a Victorian custom of singing nonsense songs at parties, in the limerick rhymescheme (aabba), which always ended with the line ‘Will you come up to Limerick?’ (Limerick of course being a county and town in Ireland).
orange: orange: [14] The name of the orange originated in northern India, as Sanskrit nāranga. This passed westwards via Persian nārang and Arabic nāranj to Spain. The Spanish form naranj filtered up to France, and became altered (perhaps under the influence of Orange, the name of a town in southeastern France which used to be a centre of the orange trade) to orenge, later orange – whence the English word.
puckish: puckish: [19] In English folklore from the late Middle Ages onward, Puck was a mischievous but essentially harmless sprite, up to all sorts of tricks (hence the coining of puckish for ‘mischievous’). But his Anglo-Saxon ancestor Pūca was a far less pleasant proposition – for this was the Devil himself. He gradually dwindled over the centuries, but a hint of his former power remained in his placatory alternative name Robin Goodfellow. It is not known whether pūca is of Germanic or Celtic origin.
speak: speak: [OE] The usual Old English word for ‘speak’ was sprecan, which has close living relatives in German sprechen and Dutch spreken. Specan, the ancestor of modern English speak, did not appear until around the year 1000, but already by the 12th century it had virtually replaced sprecan. It is not known how the r-less form (which has no surviving relatives in other Germanic languages) arose, but it is clearly a secondary development of the r-form.

This seems to be connected with Danish spage ‘crackle’, Lithuanian sprageti ‘crackle’, and Sanskrit sphūrj- ‘crackle, rustle’, suggesting that the English word’s use for ‘utter, say’ arose via an earlier ‘crackle, prattle, babble, chatter’ (English ‘crack on about something’, ‘not what it’s cracked up to be’, and ‘crack a joke’ are remnants of an earlier widespread use of English crack for ‘speak’).
=> speech
sublime: sublime: [16] Sublime was borrowed from Latin sublīmis ‘lofty, exalted’. This was a compound adjective formed from the prefix sub- ‘under’ and probably līmen ‘lintel, threshold’ (a relative of līmes ‘boundary’, from which English gets limit). Sub- here probably has the force of ‘up to’, so that the word denotes etymologically ‘as high as the top of a door’. The same elements were used in the 1880s to coin subliminal, as a direct rendering of the German psychological term unter der schwelle des bewusstseins ‘below the threshold of consciousness’.
=> limit
suspect: suspect: [14] Latin suspicere originally meant literally ‘look up at’ (it was a compound verb formed from the prefix sub- ‘up from under’ and specere ‘look at’, source of English spectator, spy, etc). It evolved metaphorically along two lines: ‘look up to, admire’, which has since died out, and ‘look at secretly’, hence ‘look at distrustfully’, which has passed into English in the form of its past participial stem suspect-. Suspicion [14] comes from the medieval Latin derivative suspectiō.
=> expect, inspect, spectator, spy, suspicion
tantalize: tantalize: [16] The verb tantalize was inspired by the sad story of Tantalus, a mythical king of Phrygia in the ancient world. He had displeased the gods in some way (versions differ as to how, the commonest being that he had stolen their food), and as a punishment he was condemned to stand for ever in water up to his chin, while overhead hung boughs laden with fruit: whenever he stooped to drink, the water disappeared, and when he tried to reach the fruit, the wind blew it away. The term tantalus, coined in the 19th century for a lockable decanter stand whose contents can be seen but not got at, preserves the same idea.
till: till: English has three distinct words till, but two of them are probably related. The etymological notion underlying till ‘cultivate the soil’ [OE] is of ‘striving to obtain a goal’. Indeed, that is what its Old English ancestor tilian originally meant; ‘cultivate’ is a late Old English development, via an intermediate ‘labour’. The verb comes from a prehistoric Germanic *tilōjan, a derivative of the noun *tilam ‘aim, purpose’ (source of German ziel ‘goal’).

This passed into Old English as till ‘fixed point’, which seems to have been converted into a preposition meaning ‘up to a particular point (originally in space, but soon also in time)’. The compound until dates from the 13th century; its first element was borrowed from Old Norse *und ‘till’. The origins of till ‘money box’ [15] are uncertain.
accost (v.): 1570s, from Middle French accoster "move up to," from Italian accostare or directly from Late Latin accostare "come up to the side," from Latin ad- "to" (see ad-) + costa "rib, side" (see coast (n.)). The original notion is of fleets of warships attacking an enemy's coast. Related: Accosted; accosting.
acknowledge (v.): 1550s, a blend of Middle English aknow (from Old English oncnawan "understand," from on + cnawan "recognize;" see know) and Middle English knowlechen "admit, acknowledge" (c. 1200; see knowledge). In the merger, a parasitic -c- slipped in, so that while the kn- became a simple "n" sound (as in know), the -c- stepped up to preserve, in this word, the ancient "kn-" sound. Related: Acknowledged; acknowledging.
actual (adj.): early 14c., "pertaining to an action," from Old French actuel "now existing, up to date" (13c.), from Late Latin actualis "active, pertaining to action," adjectival form of Latin actus (see act (n.)). The broader sense of "real, existing" (as opposed to potential, ideal, etc.) is from late 14c.
actuality (n.): late 14c., "power, efficacy," from Old French actualite and directly from Medieval Latin actualitatem (nominative actualitas), from Late Latin actualis (see actual). A Latin loan-translation of Greek energeia. Meaning "state of being real" is from 1670s (actualities "existing conditions" is from 1660s).
Mod. use of actuality in the sense of realism, contact with the contemporary, is due to Fr. actualité, from actuel, which does not mean actual, real, but now existing, up to date. [Weekley]
ana-: before verbs an-, prefix meaning 1. "upward," 2. "back, backward, against," 3. "again, anew," from Greek ana- "up to, toward, exceedingly, back, against," from ana "up, on, upon, throughout, again," cognate with Old English on, from PIE root *ano- "on, upon, above" (see on).
analogue (n.): 1826, "an analogous thing," from French analogue, from Greek analogon (itself used in English from c. 1810), from ana "up to" (see ana-) + logos "account, ratio" (see lecture (n.)). Computing sense is recorded from 1946.
aspire (v.): "strive for," c. 1400, from Old French aspirer "aspire to; inspire; breathe, breathe on" (12c.), from Latin aspirare "to breathe upon, blow upon, to breathe," also, in transferred senses, "to be favorable to, assist; to climb up to, to endeavor to obtain, to reach to, to seek to reach; infuse," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + spirare "to breathe" (see spirit (n.)). The notion is of "panting with desire," or perhaps of rising smoke. Related: Aspired; aspiring.
attain (v.): c. 1300, "to succeed in reaching," from ataign-, stem of Old French ataindre (11c., Modern French atteindre) "to come up to, reach, attain, endeavor, strive," from Vulgar Latin *attangere, corresponding to Latin attingere "to touch, to arrive at," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + tangere "to touch" (see tangent (adj.)). Latin attingere had a wide range of meanings, including "to attack, to strike, to appropriate, to manage," all somehow suggested by the literal sense "to touch." Related: Attained; attaining.
bad (adj.): c. 1200, "inferior in quality;" early 13c., "wicked, evil, vicious," a mystery word with no apparent relatives in other languages.* Possibly from Old English derogatory term bæddel and its diminutive bædling "effeminate man, hermaphrodite, pederast," probably related to bædan "to defile." A rare word before 1400, and evil was more common in this sense until c. 1700. Meaning "uncomfortable, sorry" is 1839, American English colloquial.

Comparable words in the other Indo-European languages tend to have grown from descriptions of specific qualities, such as "ugly," "defective," "weak," "faithless," "impudent," "crooked," "filthy" (such as Greek kakos, probably from the word for "excrement;" Russian plochoj, related to Old Church Slavonic plachu "wavering, timid;" Persian gast, Old Persian gasta-, related to gand "stench;" German schlecht, originally "level, straight, smooth," whence "simple, ordinary," then "bad").

Comparative and superlative forms badder, baddest were common 14c.-18c. and used as recently as Defoe (but not by Shakespeare), but yielded to comparative worse and superlative worst (which had belonged to evil and ill).

As a noun, late 14c., "evil, wickedness." In U.S. place names, sometimes translating native terms meaning "supernaturally dangerous." Ironic use as a word of approval is said to be at least since 1890s orally, originally in Black English, emerging in print 1928 in a jazz context. It might have emerged from the ambivalence of expressions like bad nigger, used as a term of reproach by whites, but among blacks sometimes representing one who stood up to injustice, but in the U.S. West bad man also had a certain ambivalence:
These are the men who do most of the killing in frontier communities, yet it is a noteworthy fact that the men who are killed generally deserve their fate. [Farmer & Henley]
*Farsi has bad in more or less the same sense as the English word, but this is regarded by linguists as a coincidence. The forms of the words diverge as they are traced back in time (Farsi bad comes from Middle Persian vat), and such accidental convergences exist across many languages, given the vast number of words in each and the limited range of sounds humans can make to signify them. Among other coincidental matches with English are Korean mani "many," Chinese pei "pay," Nahuatl (Aztecan) huel "well," Maya hol "hole."
bang (v.): 1540s, "to strike hard with a loud blow," from a Scandinavian sourse akin to Old Norse banga "to pound, hammer" of echoic origin. Slang meaning "have sexual intercourse with" first recorded 1937. Bang-up "excellent, first-rate," 1820, probably shortened from phrase bang up to the mark. The noun is recorded from late 16c.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

[T.S. Eliot, "Hollow Men," 1925]
coerce (v.): mid-15c., cohercen, from Middle French cohercer, from Latin coercere "to control, restrain, shut up together," from com- "together" (see co-) + arcere "to enclose, confine, contain, ward off," from PIE *ark- "to hold, contain, guard" (see arcane). Related: Coerced; coercing. No record of the word between late 15c. and mid-17c.; its reappearance 1650s is perhaps a back-formation from coercion.
construction (n.): late 14c., from Old French construction or directly from Latin constructionem (nominative constructio), from construct-, past participle stem of construere "pile up together, accumulate; build, make, erect," from com- "together" (see com-) + struere "to pile up" (see structure (n.)).
convolute (adj.): "rolled up together," 1794, from Latin convolutus, past participle of convolvere (see convolution). The noun meaning "something convoluted" is from 1846.
cracker (n.2): Southern U.S. derogatory term for "poor, white trash" (1766), probably an agent noun from crack (v.) in the sense "to boast" (as in not what it's cracked up to be). Compare Latin crepare "to rattle, crack, creak," with a secondary figurative sense of "boast of, prattle, make ado about."
I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode. [1766, G. Cochrane]
But DARE compares corn-cracker "poor white farmer" (1835, U.S. Midwest colloquial). Especially of Georgians by 1808, though often extended to residents of northern Florida. Another name in mid-19c. use was sand-hiller "poor white in Georgia or South Carolina."
Not very essentially different is the condition of a class of people living in the pine-barrens nearest the coast [of South Carolina], as described to me by a rice-planter. They seldom have any meat, he said, except they steal hogs, which belong to the planters, or their negroes, and their chief diet is rice and milk. "They are small, gaunt, and cadaverous, and their skin is just the color of the sand-hills they live on. They are quite incapable of applying themselves steadily to any labor, and their habits are very much like those of the old Indians." [Frederick Law Olmsted, "A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States," 1856]
dap (n.): fist-bump greeting, with various theories as to origin and name meaning. In U.S. popular black culture by 1972 and controversial during the Vietnam War when used by U.S. soldiers, as it often was regarded by whites as a ritual act of black solidarity. Probably imitative (dap was used in 19c. for the bounce of a ball or the skip of a stone on water). Dap, meanwhile, is listed in the DAS as black slang c. 1950 for "aware, up to date," also "stylish, well-dressed," in the latter case at least a shortening of dapper.
devote (v.): 1580s, from Latin devotus, past participle of devovere (see devotion). Second and third meanings in Johnson's Dictionary (1755) are "to addict, to give up to ill" and "to curse, to execrate; to doom to destruction." Related: Devoted; devoting.
dingbat (n.): 1838, American English, some kind of alcoholic drink, of unknown origin. One of that class of words (such as dingus, doohickey, gadget, gizmo, thingumabob) which are conjured up to supply names for items whose proper names are unknown or not recollected. Used at various periods for "money," "a professional tramp," "a muffin," "a typographical ornament," "male genitalia," "a Chinese," "an Italian," "a woman who is neither your sister nor your mother," and "a foolish person in authority." Popularized in sense of "foolish person" by U.S. TV show "All in the Family" (1971-79), though this usage dates from 1905.
electrum (n.): "alloy of gold and up to 40% silver," late 14c. (in Old English elehtre), from Latin electrum "alloy of gold and silver," also "amber" (see electric). So called probably for its pale yellow color. "A word used by Greek and Latin authors in various meanings at various times" [Century Dictionary"]. In Greek, usually of amber but also of pure gold. The Romans used it of amber but also of the alloy. The sense of "amber" also occasionally is found in English. "At all times, and especially among the Latin writers, there is more or less uncertainty in regard to the meaning of this word" ["Century Dictionary"].
epicure (n.): late 14c., "follower of Epicurus," from Latinized form of Greek Epicouros (341-270 B.C.E.), Athenian philosopher who taught that pleasure is the highest good and identified virtue as the greatest pleasure; the first lesson recalled, the second forgotten, and the name used pejoratively for "one who gives himself up to sensual pleasure" (1560s), especially "glutton, sybarite" (1774). Epicurus's school was opposed by the stoics, who first gave his name a reproachful sense. Non-pejorative meaning "one who cultivates refined taste in food and drink" is from 1580s.
fat (adj.): Old English fætt "fat, fatted, plump, obese," originally a contracted past participle of fættian "to cram, stuff," from Proto-Germanic *faitida "fatted," from verb *faitjan "to fatten," from *faita- "plump, fat" (cognates: Old Frisian fatt, Old Norse feitr, Dutch vet, German feist "fat"), from PIE *poid- "to abound in water, milk, fat, etc." (source also of Greek piduein "to gush forth"), from root *peie- "to be fat, swell" (cognates: Sanskrit payate "swells, exuberates," pituh "juice, sap, resin;" Lithuanian pienas "milk;" Greek pion "fat; wealthy;" Latin pinguis "fat").

Meaning "abounding in comforts, prosperous" is late 14c. Teen slang meaning "attractive, up to date" (also later phat) is attested from 1951. Fat cat "privileged and rich person" is from 1928; fat chance "no chance at all" attested from 1905, perhaps ironic (the expression is found earlier in the sense "good opportunity"). Fathead is from 1842; fat-witted is from 1590s; fatso is first recorded 1943. Expression the fat is in the fire originally meant "the plan has failed" (1560s).
father (n.): Old English fæder "he who begets a child, nearest male ancestor;" also "any lineal male ancestor; the Supreme Being," and by late Old English, "one who exercises parental care over another," from Proto-Germanic *fader (cognates: Old Saxon fadar, Old Frisian feder, Dutch vader, Old Norse faðir, Old High German fatar, German vater; in Gothic usually expressed by atta), from PIE *pəter- "father" (cognates: Sanskrit pitar-, Greek pater, Latin pater, Old Persian pita, Old Irish athir "father"), presumably from baby-speak sound "pa." The ending formerly was regarded as an agent-noun affix.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

[Wordsworth, 1802]
The classic example of Grimm's Law, where PIE "p-" becomes Germanic "f-." Spelling with -th- (15c.) reflects widespread phonetic shift in Middle English that turned -der to -ther in many words, perhaps reinforced in this case by Old Norse forms; spelling caught up to pronunciation in 1500s (compare mother (n.), weather (n.)). As a title of various Church dignitaries from c. 1300; meaning "creator, inventor, author" is from mid-14c.; that of "anything that gives rise to something else" is from late 14c. As a respectful title for an older man, recorded from 1550s. Father-figure is from 1954. Fathers "leading men, elders" is from 1580s.
fed (adj.): past participle adjective from feed (v.). Fed up "surfeited, disgusted, bored," is British slang first recorded 1900 (some early uses connect it to the Boer War), extended to U.S. by World War I; probably from earlier phrases like fed up to the back teeth. Earlier it was used of livestock, "fatten up by feeding." The notion probably is the same one in to have had enough "to have had too much."
fellow (n.): "companion, comrade," c. 1200, from Old English feolaga "partner, one who shares with another," from Old Norse felagi, from fe "money" (see fee) + lag, from a verbal base denoting "lay" (see lay (v.)). The root sense is of fellow is "one who puts down money with another in a joint venture."

Meaning "one of the same kind" is from early 13c.; that of "one of a pair" is from c. 1300. Used familiarly since mid-15c. for "any man, male person," but not etymologically masculine (it is used of women, for example, in Judges xi:37 in the King James version: "And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows"). Its use can be contemptuous or dignified in English and American English, and at different times in its history, depending on who used it to whom, it has carried a tinge of condescension or insult. University senses (mid-15c., corresponding to Latin socius) evolved from notion of "one of the corporation who constitute a college" and who are paid from its revenues. Fellow well-met "boon companion" is from 1580s, hence hail-fellow-well-met as a figurative phrase for "on intimate terms."

In compounds, with a sense of "co-, joint-," from 16c., and by 19c. also denoting "association with another." Hence fellow-traveler, 1610s in a literal sense but in 20c. with a specific extended sense of "one who sympathizes with the Communist movement but is not a party member" (1936, translating Russian poputchik).

Fellow-countrymen formerly was one of the phrases the British held up to mock the Americans for their ignorance, as it is redundant to say both, until they discovered it dates from the 1580s and was used by Byron and others.
foot-hill (n.): also foot-hill, "a hill that leads up to a mountain," 1850, American English, from foot (n.) + hill.
football (n.): open-air game involving kicking a ball, c. 1400; in reference to the inflated ball used in the game, mid-14c. ("Ãe heued fro Ã¾e body went, Als it were a foteballe," Octavian I manuscript, c. 1350), from foot (n.) + ball (n.1). Forbidden in a Scottish statute of 1424. One of Shakespeare's insults is "you base foot-ball player" [Lear I.iv]. Ball-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems first to have risen to a national obsession in England, c. 1630. Figurative sense of "something idly kicked around, something subject to hard use and many vicissitudes" is by 1530s.

Rules of the game first regularized at Cambridge, 1848; soccer (q.v.) split off in 1863. The U.S. style (known to some in England as "stop-start rugby with padding") evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team's rules, was true U.S. football. Both were described as foot-ball at Princeton.
Then twenty-five of the best players in college were sent up to Brunswick to combat with the Rutgers boys. Their peculiar way of playing this game proved to Princeton an insurmountable difficulty; .... Two weeks later Rutgers sent down the same twenty-five, and on the Princeton grounds, November 13th, Nassau played her game; the result was joyous, and entirely obliterated the stigma of the previous defeat. ["Typical Forms of '71" by the Princeton University Class of '72, 1869]
game (adj.2): "ready for action, unafraid, and up to the task;" probably literally "spirited as a game-cock," 1725, from game-cock "bird bred for fighting" (1670s), from game (n.) in the "sport, amusement" sense. Middle English adjectives gamesome, gamelich meant "joyful, playful, sportive."
geratology (n.): "study of decadence" in a species, etc., 1876, from Greek geras (genitive geratos) "old age" (see geriatric) + -logy. Related: Geratologic.
I have adopted this new term with considerable hesitation and doubt, and have only done so under the pressure of necessity. In no other way can I better convey my conviction that there is a traceable correspondence between all manifestations of decline in the individual and in the group to which the individual belongs, which may, like embryology, be used inductively in reasoning upon the probable affinities of animals. [A. Hyatt, paper on "Genetic Relations of Stephanoceras," read June 7, 1876, published in "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," vol. XVIII, 1877]
glacis (n.): "sloping bank" (especially leading up to a fortification), 1670s, from French glacir "to freeze, make slippery," from Old French glacier "to slip, glide," from Vulgar Latin *glaciare "to make or turn into ice," from Latin glacies "ice" (see glacial).
good (adj.): Old English god (with a long "o") "excellent, fine; valuable; desirable, favorable, beneficial; full, entire, complete;" of abstractions, actions, etc., "beneficial, effective; righteous, pious;" of persons or souls, "righteous, pious, virtuous;" probably originally "having the right or desirable quality," from Proto-Germanic *godaz "fitting, suitable" (cognates: Old Norse goðr, Dutch goed, Old High German guot, German gut, Gothic goþs), originally "fit, adequate, belonging together," from PIE root *ghedh- "to unite, be associated, suitable" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic godu "pleasing time," Russian godnyi "fit, suitable," Old English gædrian "to gather, to take up together").

Irregular comparative and superlative (better, best) reflect a widespread pattern in words for "good," as in Latin bonus, melior, optimus.

Sense of "kind, benevolent" is from late Old English in reference to persons or God, from mid-14c. of actions. That of "friendly, gracious" is from c. 1200. Meaning "fortunate, prosperous, favorable" was in late Old English. As an expression of satisfaction, from early 15c. Of persons, "skilled (at a profession or occupation), expert," in late Old English, now typically with at; in Middle English with of or to. Of children, "well-behaved," by 1690s. Of money, "not debased, standard as to value," from late 14c. From c. 1200 of numbers or quantities, "large, great," of time or distance, "long;" good while "a considerable time" is from c. 1300; good way "a great distance" is mid-15c.
Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing. ["As You Like It"]
As good as "practically, virtually" is from mid-14c.; to be good for "beneficial to" is from late 14c. To make good "repay (costs, expenses), atone for (a sin or an offense)" is from late 14c. To have a good mind "have an earnest desire" (to do something) is from c. 1500. Good deed, good works were in Old English as "an act of piety;" good deed specifically as "act of service to others" was reinforced early 20c. by Boy Scouting. Good turn is from c. 1400. Good sport, of persons, is from 1906. The good book "the Bible" attested from 1801, originally in missionary literature describing the language of conversion efforts in American Indian tribes. Good to go is attested from 1989.
grab (v.): "seize forcibly or roughly," 1580s, from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German grabben "to grab," from Proto-Germanic *grab-, *grap- (cognates: Old English græppian "to seize," Old Saxon garva, Old High German garba "sheaf," literally "that which is gathered up together"), from PIE *ghrebh- (1) "to seize, reach" (cognates: Sanskrit grbhnati "seizes," Old Persian grab- "seize" as possession or prisoner, Old Church Slavonic grabiti "to seize, rob," Lithuanian grebiu "to rake"). Sense of "to get by unscrupulous methods" was reinforced by grab game, a kind of swindle, attested from 1846. Related: Grabbed; grabbing.
heel-tap (n.): also heeltap, 1680s, "one of the bits of leather that are stacked up to make a shoe heel" (see heel (n.1)); meaning "bit of liquor left in a glass or bottle" first recorded 1780s; the exact connection is uncertain unless it be "the last or final part."