英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

caterwaul: caterwaul: [14] The earliest known use of this word comes in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue 1386: ‘If the cat’s skin be slick and grey, forth she will, ere any day be dawned, to show her skin, and go a-caterwauling’. The first element of the word is generally accepted to be cat, while the second (in Middle English it was usually -wawe or -wrawe) is presumably onomatopoeic, imitating the sound of a cat wailing or yowling. It is not clear whether it was a purely native creation, or whether English borrowed it from Low German katerwaulen (where kater means ‘tom cat’).
weep: weep: [OE] Weep goes back to prehistoric Germanic *wōpjan, which probably originated in imitation of the sound of wailing or lamentation. Most of its Germanic relatives have long since died out, but Icelandic still has ǽpa ‘cry out, scream’.
bewail (v.): c. 1300, from be- + wail (v.). Related: Bewailed; bewailing.
bleat (v.): Old English blætan, from West Germanic *bhle- (source also of Dutch blaten "to bleat"), of imitative origin (compare Greek blekhe "a bleating; the wailing of children," Old Church Slavonic blejat "to bleat," Latin flere "to weep"). Related: Bleated; bleating.
katzenjammer (n.): 1849, "a hangover," American English colloquial, from German katzen, comb. form of katze "cat" (see cat (n.)) + jammer "distress, wailing" (see yammer). Hence, "any unpleasant reaction" (1897).
Pleasure can intoxicate, passion can inebriate, success can make you quite as drunk as champagne. The waking from these several stages of delights will bring the same result--Katzenjammer. In English you would call it reaction; but whole pages of English cannot express the sick, empty, weary, vacant feeling which is so concisely contained within these four German syllables. ["Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine," August 1884]
Katzenjammer Kids "spectacularly naughty children" is from title of comic strip first drawn by German-born U.S. comic strip artist Rudolph Dirks (1877-1968) in 1897 for the "New York Journal." It was temporarily de-Germanized during World War I:
"THE SHENANIGAN KIDS" is the new American name for the original "Katzenjammer Kids." Although the original name and idea were pure Holland Dutch, some people may have had the mistaken impression that they were of Germanic origin, and hence the change. It is the same splendid comic as in the past. [International Feature Service advertisement in "Editor & Publisher," July 6, 1918]
lamentation (n.): late 14c., from Old French lamentacion and directly from Latin lamentationem (nominative lamentatio) "wailing, moaning, weeping," noun of action from past participle stem of lamentari "to wail, moan, weep, lament," from lamentum "a wailing," from PIE root *la- "to shout, cry," probably ultimately imitative. Replaced Old English cwiþan.
plaint (n.): "expression of sorrow," c. 1200, from Old French plainte "lament, lamentation" (12c.), from Latin planctus "lamentation, wailing, beating of the breast," from past participle stem of plangere "to lament, to strike" (see plague (n.)). Connecting notion probably is beating one's breast in grief.
surfing (n.): 1955, verbal noun from surf (v.). The surfing craze went nationwide in U.S. from California in 1963. Surf-board is from 1826, originally in a Hawaiian and Polynesian context. Surf music attested from 1963.
It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the south part of this town, some day when the sea is rolling in heavily over the reef, and to observe there the evolutions and rapid career of a company of surf-players. The sport is so attractive and full of wild excitement to Hawaiians, and withal so healthful, that I cannot but hope it will be many years before civilization shall look it out of countenance, or make it disreputable to indulge in this manly, though it be dangerous, exercise. [the Rev. Henry T. Cheever, "Life in the Sandwich Islands," New York, 1851]

"The basis of surfing music is a rock and roll bass beat figuration, coupled with a raunch-type weird-sounding lead guitar plus wailing saxes. Surfing music has to sound untrained with a certain rough flavor to appeal to the teenagers." [music publisher Murray Wilson, quoted in "Billboard," June 29, 1963]
ululation (n.): 1590s, from Latin ululationem (nominative ululatio) "a howling or wailing," noun of action from past participle stem of ululare "to howl, yell, shriek, wail, lament loudly," from a reduplicated imitative root (cognates: Greek ololyzein "to cry aloud," Sanskrit ululih "a howling," Lithuanian uluti "howl," Gaelic uileliugh "wail of lamentation," Old English ule "owl").
wail (v.): c. 1300 (intransitive); mid-14c. (transitive), from Old Norse væla "to lament," from væ "woe" (see woe). Of jazz musicians, "to play very well," attested from 1955, American English slang (wailing "excellent" is attested from 1954). Related: Wailed; wailer.