quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- brace



[brace 词源字典] - brace: [14] English borrowed brace from Old French brace, which meant simply ‘(the length measured by) two arms’. It came from Latin bracchia, the plural of bracchium ‘arm’ (source of French bras ‘arm’, and also of various English technical terms, such as brachiopod [19], a type of shellfish, literally ‘arm-foot’). The word’s ultimate source was Greek brakhíōn ‘arm’, originally ‘upper arm’, which was formed from the comparative of brakhús ‘short’, a relative of English brief (the sense development is probably that the upper arm was named from being ‘shorter’ than the forearm).
Of the rather diverse range of meanings the word has in modern English, ‘pair’ derives from the original notion of ‘twoness’, while ‘strengthening or supporting structure’ owes much to the idea of ‘clasping’, mainly contained originally in the verb brace [14], from Old French bracier ‘put one’s arms around’ (a derivative of Old French brace). In English it now only means ‘support, strengthen’, the sense ‘clasp with the arms’ being reserved to embrace [14], from Old French embracer.
=> brief, embrace[brace etymology, brace origin, 英语词源] - aisle (n.)




- late 14c., ele, "lateral division of a church (usually separated by a row of pillars), from Old French ele "wing (of a bird or an army), side of a ship" (12c., Modern French aile), from Latin ala, related to axilla "wing, upper arm, armpit; wing of an army," from PIE *aks- "axis" (see axis), via a suffixed form *aks-la-. The root meaning in "turning" connects it with axle and axis.
Confused from 15c. with unrelated ile "island" (perhaps from notion of a "detached" part of a church), and so it took an -s- when isle did, c. 1700; by 1750 it had acquired an a-, on the model of French cognate aile. The word also was confused with alley, which gave it the sense of "passage between rows of pews or seats" (1731), which was thence extended to railway cars, theaters, etc. - armilla (n.)




- 1706, Latin, literally "bracelet, armlet, arm ring," from armus "shoulder, upper arm" (see arm (n.1)). Related: Armillary.
- axillary (adj.)




- "pertaining to the armpit or shoulder," 1610s, from Latin *axillaris, from axilla "armpit, upper arm, wing" (see axle).
- brachio-




- before a vowel, brachi-, word-forming element meaning "arm," from Greek brakhion "arm," perhaps originally "upper arm," literally "shorter," and from brakhys "short" (see brief (adj.)), in contrast to the longer forearm.
- humerus (n.)




- 1706, "bone of the upper arm," originally (14c.) "shoulder," a misspelled borrowing of Latin umerus "shoulder," from PIE *om(e)so- (cognates: Sanskrit amsah, Greek omos, Old Norse ass, Gothic ams "shoulder").