英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

career [career 词源字典]: career: [16] Originally, a career was a ‘road or racetrack for vehicles’. Its ultimate source was Latin carrus ‘wheeled vehicle’ (from which we get car), which produced the Vulgar Latin derivative *carāria ‘track for wheeled vehicles’. This passed into English via Provençal carreira, Italian carriera, and French carrière. Its earliest meaning was ‘racecourse’, and hence, by extension, ‘swift course’; the main present-day sense ‘course of someone’s working life’ did not develop until the 19th century, probably owing to renewed influence of French carrière.
=> car[career etymology, career origin, 英语词源]
corral: corral: [16] English acquired corral from Spanish corral, but its previous history is disputed. Some etymologists consider that it is of southern African origin, from the language of the Hottentot people, but others derive it from Vulgar Latin *currale ‘enclosure for vehicles’, which would have been based on Latin currus ‘two-wheeled wagon’ (source of English car and carry). Kraal [18] originated as an Afrikaans adaptation of Portuguese curral, corresponding to Spanish corral.
=> kraal
garage: garage: [20] As the motor-car age got under way at the start of the 20th century, a gap opened up in the lexicon for a word for ‘car-storage place’. English filled it in 1902 by borrowing French garage. The first references to it show that the term (station was an early alternative) was originally applied to large commercially run shelters housing many vehicles – the equivalent more of modern multi-storey car parks than of garages (the Daily Mail, for example, on 11 January 1902, reports the ‘new “garage” founded by Mr Harrington Moore, hon. secretary of the Automobile Club … The “garage”, which is situated at the City end of Queen Victoria-street, has accommodation for 80 cars’, and Alfred Harmsworth, in Motors 1902, wrote of ‘stations or “garages” where a number of cars can be kept’).

It was not long, however, before individual houses got more personalized garages, and the application to an establishment where vehicle repairs are carried out and fuel sold soon followed. The French word garage itself is a derivative of the verb garer, which originally meant ‘dock ships’. It comes from Old French garer ‘protect, defend’, a loanword from Old High German warōn (to which English ward, warn, and the -ware of beware are related).
=> beware, ward, warn
park: park: [13] The origins of park are Germanic. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base, meaning ‘enclosed place’, which has also given English paddock. This reached English by direct descent, but park took a route via medieval Latin. Here it was parricus, which passed into English via Old French parc. The verbal use of park, for ‘place a vehicle’, began to emerge in the early 19th century, and was based on the notion of putting military vehicles, artillery, etc in an ‘enclosure’. Parquet [19] comes from a diminutive of French parc, in the sense ‘small enclosed place’.
=> paddock, parquet
rickshaw: rickshaw: [19] Rickshaw is English’s attempt to domesticate Japanese jin-riki-sha. These small two-wheeled man-hauled vehicles were introduced in Japan around 1870, and their name, which means literally ‘man strength vehicle’, had made its way into English by 1874. By the 1880s it had been shortened to rickshaw.
station: station: [14] A station is etymologically a ‘standing’, hence a ‘place for standing’ – a guard who takes up his ‘station’ outside a building goes and ‘stands’ there. The word comes via Old French station from Latin statiō ‘standing’, a descendant of the base *stā- ‘stand’ (to which English stand is related). Various metaphorical senses emerged in Latin, such as ‘post, job’ and ‘abode, residence’, but ‘stopping place for vehicles’ is a post-Latin development.

It came out of an earlier ‘stopping place on a journey’, and is first recorded in English at the end of the 18th century, in the USA, with reference to coach routes. The application to ‘railway stations’ dates from the 1830s. The notion of ‘standing still’ is preserved in the derived adjective stationary [15].
=> constant, instant, stand, state, stationary, stationery, statue
tram: tram: [16] Tram was borrowed from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch trame ‘balk of timber, beam’, a word of unknown origin. It was originally used in English for the ‘shafts’ of a cart, and then for the cart itself. The track on which such carts ran in mines and similar places came to be known as tramlines, and this term was adopted in the 19th century for a track used for passenger road vehicles. These in turn were called tramcars, or trams for short.
amphibious (adj.): 1640s, from Greek amphibios "having a double life" (see amphibian). Of motor vehicles, from 1915.
autocar (n.): 1895, from auto- + car.
Which is it to be? We observe that the London Times has lent the weight of its authority to the word "autocar," which it now prints without the significant inverted commas but with a hyphen, "auto-car." We believe that the vocable originated with a journal called the Hardwareman, which succeeded in obtaining the powerful support of the Engineer for its offspring. As for ourselves, being linguistic purists, we do not care for hybrid constructions--"auto" is Greek, while "car" is Latin and Celtic. At the same time, such clumsy phrases as "horseless carriages," "mechanical road carriages," and "self-propelled vehicles" are not meeting with general favour. Why not therefore adopt the philogically sound "motor-car," which could be run into a single word, "motorcar"? ["The Electrical Engineer," Dec. 20, 1895]
body (n.): Old English bodig "trunk, chest" (of a man or animal); related to Old High German botah, of unknown origin. Not elsewhere in Germanic, and the word has died out in German (replaced by leib, originally "life," and körper, from Latin). In English, extension to "person" is from late 13c. Meaning "main part" of anything was in late Old English, hence its use in reference to vehicles (1520s).

Contrasted with soul since at least mid-13c. Meaning "corpse" (short for dead body) is from late 13c. Transferred to matter generally in Middle English (as in heavenly body, late 14c.). Body politic "the nation, the state" first recorded 1520s, legalese, with French word order. Body image was coined 1935. Body language is attested from 1967, perhaps from French langage corporel (1966). Phrase over my dead body attested by 1833.
career (n.): 1530s, "a running (usually at full speed), a course" (especially of the sun, etc., across the sky), from Middle French carriere "road, racecourse" (16c.), from Old Provençal or Italian carriera, from Vulgar Latin *(via) cararia "carriage (road), track for wheeled vehicles," from Latin carrus "chariot" (see car). Sense of "course of a working life" first attested 1803.
carriage (n.): late 14c., "act of carrying, means of conveyance; wheeled vehicles collectively," from Anglo-French and Old North French cariage "cart, carriage, action of transporting in a vehicle" (Old French charriage, Modern French charriage), from carier "to carry" (see carry (v.)). Meaning "individual wheeled vehicle" is c. 1400; specific sense of "horse-drawn, wheeled vehicle for hauling people" first attested 1706; extended to railway cars by 1830. Meaning "way of carrying one's body" is 1590s. Carriage-house attested from 1761.
clutch (n.2): movable mechanical part for transmitting motion, 1814, from clutch (v.), with the "seizing" sense extended to "device for bringing working parts together." Originally of mill-works, first used of motor vehicles 1899. Meaning "moment when heroics are required" is attested from 1920s.
coast (v.): late 14c., "to skirt, to go around the sides, to go along the border" of something (as a ship does the coastline), from Anglo-French costien, from the French source of coast (n.). The meaning "sled downhill," first attested 1775 in American English, is a separate borrowing. Of motor vehicles, "to move without thrust from the engine," by 1925; figurative use, of persons, "not to exert oneself," by 1934. Related: Coasted; coasting.
corral (n.): 1580s, from Spanish corral, from corro "ring," Portuguese curral, of uncertain origin. Perhaps ultimately African, or from Vulgar Latin *currale "enclosure for vehicles," from Latin currus "two-wheeled vehicle," from currere "to run."
dashboard (n.): 1846, from dash (v.) + board (n.1); "board in front of a carriage to stop mud from being splashed ("dashed") into the vehicle by the horse's hoofs." Of motor vehicles, from 1904.
Denver: city in Colorado, U.S., founded 1858 as Auraria ("golden"), renamed 1859 for Gen. James W. Denver (1817-1892), governor of the territory. The family name is from the place of that name in Norfolk, literally "ford or passage used by the Danes," from Old English Dena (genitive plural) + fær.

The Denver boot or shoe as the name for a wheel clamp for illegally parked vehicles, supposedly was invented 1953 by Frank Marugg, pattern-maker and violinist with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. He was a friend of politicians and police department officials, and the city sheriff's department came to him for help in making a device to immobilize vehicles whose owners didn't pay parking tickets.
double-decker (n.): 1835 of ships, 1867 of street vehicles; from double (adj.) + deck (n.).
limousine (n.): 1902, "enclosed automobile with open driver's seat," from French limousine, from Limousin, region in central France, originally an adjective referring to its chief city, Limoges, from Latin Lemovices, name of a people who lived near there, perhaps named in reference to their elm spears or bows. The Latin adjective form of the name, Lemovicinus, is the source of French Limousin.

Modern automobile meaning evolved from perceived similarity of the car's profile to a type of hood worn by the inhabitants of that province. Since 1930s, synonymous in American English with "luxury car;" applied from 1959 to vehicles that take people to and from large airports. Limousine liberal first attested 1969.
mechanized (adj.): in the military sense of "equipped with or using mechanical vehicles and weapons," 1928, from past participle of mechanize (v.).
no-parking (adj.): 1956, from the wording of the sign designating a place where vehicles may not be parked (1946); see no + parking.
park (v.): 1812, "to arrange military vehicles in a park," from park (n.) in a limited sense of "enclosure for military vehicles" (attested from 1680s). General non-military meaning "to put (a vehicle) in a certain place" is first recorded 1844. Related: Parked; parking. Park-and-ride is from 1966.
racer (n.): 1640s of persons; 1793 of vehicles, agent noun from race (v.).
rolling (adj.): 14c., past participle adjective from roll (v.). Of prairie land from 1819. From mid-15c. as a verbal noun. Rolling pin is recorded from late 15c. Rolling paper for cigarettes, etc., is from 1969. Rolling stock "wheeled vehicles on a railroad" (locomotives, carriages, etc.) is from 1853.
The rollyng stone neuer gatherth mosse. [John Heywood, "A dialogue conteinying the nomber in effect of all the proverbes in the Englishe tongue," 1546]
semi-trailer (n.): also semitrailer, 1910 in reference to motor vehicles (late 19c. in botany), from semi- + trailer.Short form semi is attested from 1942.
skid (n.): c. 1600, "beam or plank on which something rests," especially on which something heavy can be rolled from place to place (1782), of uncertain origin, probably from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse skið "stick of wood" (see ski (n.)). As "a sliding along" from 1890; specifically of motor vehicles from 1903. Skid-mark is from 1914.

In the timber regions of the American West, skids laid down one after another to form a road were "a poor thing for pleasure walks, but admirably adapted for hauling logs on the ground with a minimum of friction" ["Out West" magazine, October 1903]. A skid as something used to facilitate downhill motion led to figurative phrases such as hit the skids "go into rapid decline" (1909), and see skid row.
spoiler (n.): 1530s, "one who robs or plunders," agent noun from spoil (v.). Meaning "one who mars another's chance at victory" is attested from 1950 in U.S. politics, perhaps from boxing. Aeronautics sense is from 1928, because the flap thwarts the "lift" on the plane; transferred to structures serving a similar purpose on speedboats (1957) and motor vehicles (1963). Meaning "information about the plot of a movie, etc., which might 'spoil' it for one who has not seen it" is attested by 1982.
sprag (n.): "prop in a mine," 1841, of unknown origin. Transferred by 1878 to wood blocks, etc., used to brake motor vehicles. As a verb, from 1841. Related: Spragged; spragging.
stall (v.1): "to come to a stand" (intransitive), c. 1400; "to become stuck or be set fast," mid-15c., from Old French estale or Old English steall (see stall (n.1)). Transitive sense "place in office, install" is 14c.; specifically "place an animal in a stall" (late 14c.). Of engines or engine-powered vehicles, it is attested from 1904 (transitive), 1914 (intransitive); of aircraft "to lose lift," 1910. Related: Stalled; stalling.
T-bone (n.): type of steak, 1916, so called from the T-shaped bone that runs through it. The verb meaning "to strike (another car, bus, etc.) from the side" is by 1970, from adjectival use in reference to crashes, attested from 1952, from the position of the two vehicles at impact.
traffic (n.): c. 1500, "trade, commerce," from Middle French trafique (15c.), from Italian traffico (14c.), from trafficare "carry on trade," of uncertain origin, perhaps from a Vulgar Latin *transfricare "to rub across," from Latin trans- "across" (see trans-) + fricare "to rub" (see friction), with the original sense of the Italian verb being "touch repeatedly, handle."

Or the second element may be an unexplained alteration of Latin facere "to make, do." Klein suggests ultimate derivation of the Italian word from Arabic tafriq "distribution." Meaning "people and vehicles coming and going" first recorded 1825. Traffic jam is 1917, ousting earlier traffic block (1895). Traffic circle is from 1938.
vehicular (adj.): "pertaining to vehicles," 1610s, from Late Latin vehicularis, from vehiculum "a vehicle" (see vehicle).
wheel (n.): Old English hweol, hweogol "wheel," from Proto-Germanic *hwewlaz- (cognates: Old Norse hvel, Old Swedish hiughl, Old Frisian hwel, Middle Dutch weel), from PIE *kw(e)-kwl-o- "wheel, circle," suffixed, reduplicated form of root *kwel- (1) (see cycle (n.)).
The root wegh-, "to convey, especially by wheeled vehicle," is found in virtually every branch of Indo-European, including now Anatolian. The root, as well as other widely represented roots such as aks- and nobh-, attests to the presence of the wheel -- and vehicles using it -- at the time Proto-Indo-European was spoken. [Watkins, p. 96]
Figurative sense is early 14c. Wheel of fortune attested from early 15c. Slang wheels "a car" is recorded from 1959. Wheeler-dealer is from 1954, a rhyming elaboration of dealer.
musher: "A person who owns and drives a taxi cab", Late 19th century: from slang mush 'owner-driver of a cab', from mushroom, apparently referring to the increase in the number of vehicles owned as the business grows.
petrolic: "Of or relating to petrol or petroleum; specifically relating to the use of petrol-driven motor vehicles", Late 19th cent.; earliest use found in William Dean Howells (1837–1920), author. Originally from petrol- + -ic. In later use probably partly re-formed from petrol + -ic.