英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

dairy [dairy 词源字典]: dairy: [13] Etymologically, a dairy is a place where a female kneader of bread works. The term for such an operative in Old English was dǣge, which came from the same Indo- European base (*dheigh-) as produced dough and the second syllable of lady. In Middle English this became deie or daye, and gradually progressed in meaning through ‘female servant’ in general to ‘female farm-servant’ and ‘dairymaid’, concerned with the keeping of milk and making it into butter and cheese (the word survived into modern times in Scottish English). From it was derived deierie or dayerie, to denote the place where such a woman worked.
=> dough, lady[dairy etymology, dairy origin, 英语词源]
equerry: equerry: [16] Nowadays in Britain simply royal attendants, equerries’ long and traditional association with the royal stables has led to association of the word equerry with Latin equus ‘horse’, but in fact the two are quite unrelated. Equerry originally meant ‘stable’, and was borrowed from the obsolete French escuirie (now écurie). It is not clear where this came from: some etymologists have linked it with Old High German scūr ‘barn, shed’, while others have derived it from Old French escuier ‘groom’ (source of English esquire and squire), according to which view it would mean ‘place where a groom stayed or worked’. (Escuier itself came ultimately from Latin scūtārius ‘shieldbearer’.) Forms such as escurie remained current in English up until the 18th century, but already by the 17th century equus-influenced spellings had begun to appear.

The person in charge of such a stable was formerly termed in French escuier d’escuirie ‘squire of the stable’, and in English groom of the equerry, and there are records from quite early in the 16th century indicating that equerry was being used on its own as the term for such a groom.
=> esquire, squire
fabric: fabric: [15] Latin faber was a term for an artisan who worked with hard materials – a carpenter, for example, or a smith (it probably came from a prehistoric Indo-European base meaning ‘fit things together’). From it was derived fabrica, which denoted the trade such a man followed, the place where he worked, or in general terms the product of his work – in the case of a carpenter, a ‘building’.

And ‘building’ was the original sense of the word in English when it acquired it via French fabrique: ‘He had neuer studye in newe fabrykes ne buyldynges’, William Caxton, Golden Legend 1483. Remnants of the usage survive in the current sense ‘walls, roof, and floor of a building’. It was not until the mid 18th century that the underlying notion of ‘manufactured material’ gave rise to the word’s main present-day meaning ‘textile’.

Derivatives include fabricate [18], from Latin fabricāre, and forge.
=> forge
hobbit: hobbit: [20] The name of these small furry-footed human-like creatures was invented by their creator, J.R.R. Tolkien, and first appeared in public in The Hobbit (1937). It probably simply occurred to him as a pleasing- and appropriatesounding name, but with typical linguistic thoroughness he later worked up a detailed etymological rationale for it: in their own language, he claimed, hobbits were called kuduk; this was a worn-down version of an original kûd-dûkan, which meant literally ‘holedweller’; in Old English, ‘hole-dweller’ would have been holbytla, which in modern English could plausibly have become eroded to hobbit.
sum: sum: [13] Latin summus meant ‘highest’ (a meaning preserved in English summit [15], which is ultimately derived from it); it evolved from an earlier *supmus, a superlative form based on the stem of Latin super ‘above’ (source of English super). When the Romans counted up columns of figures they worked from the bottom upwards, and put the total on top – whence the use of the expression rēs summa, literally ‘highest thing’, for ‘total’. This was eventually shortened to summa, which reached English via Old French summe. Other derivatives in English include consummate [15] and summary [15].
=> consummate, summary, summit
torment: torment: [13] The notion underlying torment is of an instrument of torture worked by ‘twisting’. The word was borrowed from Latin tormentum ‘instrument of torture’, hence ‘torture, great suffering’. This was a contraction of an earlier *torquementum, a derivative of torquēre ‘twist’, which has also given English contort [15], extort [16], retort [16], torch, torque [19], torsion [15], tort [14], tortuous [15], and torture [16] (literally ‘twisting’).
=> contort, extort, retort, thwart, torch, torque, torsion, tort, torture
arsenal (n.): c. 1500, "dockyard, dock with naval stores," from Italian arzenale, from Arabic dar as-sina'ah "workshop," literally "house of manufacture," from dar "house" + sina'ah "art, craft, skill," from sana'a "he made."

Applied by the Venetians to a large wharf in their city, which was the earliest reference of the English word. Sense of "public place for making or storing weapons and ammunition" is from 1570s. The London football club (1886) was named for the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, where the original players worked.
Bering: strait and sea between Alaska and Siberia, named for Danish explorer Vitus Bering (1681-1741), who worked for Peter the Great and led the first European expedition to sight Alaska, in 1741.
Bloomsbury: 1910, in reference to the set of Bohemian writers, artists, and intellectuals (including E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Vanessa and Clive Bell, John Maynard Keynes) centered on Lytton Strachey; so called from the London neighborhood where several lived and worked.
Women in love with buggers and buggers in love with womanizers, I don't know what the world is coming to. [Lytton Strachey]
The place name is recorded 1291 as Blemondesberi "manor held by the Blemond family," from Blémont in France. It was laid out for housing in 17c., fashionable from 18c.
chancellor (n.): early 12c., from Old French chancelier (12c.), from Late Latin cancellarius "keeper of the barrier, secretary, usher of a law court," so called because he worked behind a lattice (Latin cancellus) at a basilica or law court (see chancel). In the Roman Empire, a sort of court usher; the post gradually gained importance in the Western kingdoms. A variant form, canceler, existed in Old English, from Old North French, but was replaced by this central French form.
Comstockery (n.): 1905, from Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), founder of New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (1873) and self-appointed crusader against immorality, + -ery. Coined by George Bernard Shaw after Comstock objected to "Mrs. Warren's Profession." "Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States" [Shaw, "New York Times," Sept. 26, 1905]. The Comstock lode, silver vein in Nevada, was discovered 1859 and first worked by U.S. prospector H.T.P. Comstock (1820-1870).
cotton-picking (adj.): as a deprecatory term first recorded in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but a similar noun meaning "contemptible person" dates to around 1919, perhaps with racist overtones that have faded over the years. Before mechanization, cotton picking was the most difficult labor on a cotton plantation.
I drove out to a number of the farms near Denison and found many very young white children working all day in the hot sun picking and dragging sacks of cotton. In one field the labor corps consisted of one woman and six children, one of them 5 years, one 6 years, one 7 years, one 9 years, and two about 11. The father was plowing. The 5 and 6 year olds worked all day as did the rest. The 7-year-old said he picked 50 pounds a day and the 9 year old 75 pounds. (A good picker averages several hundred a day.) School begins late on account of the cotton picking, but the children nearly all prefer school to the picking. Picking hours are long, hot, and deadly monotonous. While the very young children seem to enjoy it, very soon their distaste for it grows into all-absorbing hatred for all work. ["Field Notes of Lewis W. Hine, Child-Labor Conditions in Texas," report to U.S. Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations, 1916]
credenza (n.): 1883, "an Italian sideboard," from Italian credenza, literally "belief, credit," from Medieval Latin credentia (see credence).

The same evolution that produced this sense in Italian also worked on the English word credence, which in Middle English also meant "act or process of testing the nature or character of food before serving it as a precaution against poison," a former practice in some royal or noble households. Because of that, in medieval times it also meant "a side-table or side-board on which the food was placed to be tasted before serving;" hence, in later use, "a cupboard or cabinet for the display of plate, etc." These senses fell away in English, and the modern furniture piece, which begins to be mentioned in domestic interiors from c. 1920, took its name from Italian, perhaps as a more elegant word than homely sideboard.
crispin (n.): 1640s, "shoemaker," in literary use only, from Ss. Crispin and Crispinian (martyred at Soissons, c.285 C.E.), patrons of shoemakers. French hagiographers make the brothers noble Romans who, while they preached in Gaul, worked as shoemakers to avoid living on the alms of the faithful. The name is Crispinus, a Roman cognomen, from Latin crispus "curly" (probably with reference to hair; see crisp).
doughface (n.): contemptuous nickname in U.S. politics for Northern Democrats who worked in the interest of the South before the Civil War; it was taken to mean "man who allows himself to be moulded." The source is an 1820 speech by John Randolph of Roanoke, in the wake of the Missouri Compromise.
Randolph, mocking the northerners intimidated by the South, referred to a children's game in which the players daubed their faces with dough and then looked in a mirror and scared themselves. [Daniel Walker Howe, "What Hath God Wrought," 2007]
Mask of dough is recorded from 1809, and the same image Randolph used is attested in another context by 1833. In contemporary use the expression was explained as referring to "the pale doughy faces of his frightened opponents" [Craigie] or "to liken them in timidity to female deer," which is frightened at her own shadow.
fiction (n.): early 15c., ficcioun, "that which is invented or imagined in the mind," from Old French ficcion "dissimulation, ruse; invention, fabrication" (13c.) and directly from Latin fictionem (nominative fictio) "a fashioning or feigning," noun of action from past participle stem of fingere "to shape, form, devise, feign," originally "to knead, form out of clay," from PIE *dheigh- "to build, form, knead" (source also of Old English dag "dough;" see dough).

Meaning "prose works (not dramatic) of the imagination" is from 1590s, at first often including plays and poems. Narrower sense of "the part of literature comprising novels and short stories based on imagined scenes or characters" is by early 19c. The legal sense (fiction of law) is from 1580s. A writer of fiction could be a fictionist (1827). The related Latin words included the literal notion "worked by hand," as well as the figurative senses of "invented in the mind; artificial, not natural": Latin fictilis "made of clay, earthen;" fictor "molder, sculptor" (also borrowed 17c. in English), but also of Ulysses as "master of deceit;" fictum "a deception, falsehood; fiction."
freemason (n.): late 14c., originally a traveling guild of masons with a secret code; in the early 17c. they began accepting honorary members and teaching them the secrets and lore, which was continued into or revived in the 17th century and by 1717 had developed into the secret fraternity of affiliated lodges known as Free and Accepted Masons (commonly abbreviated F. and A. M.). The accepted refers to persons admitted to the society but not belonging to the craft.

The exact origin of the free- is a subject of dispute. Some [such as Klein] see a corruption of French frère "brother," from frèremaçon "brother mason;" others say it was because the masons worked on "free-standing" stones; still others see them as "free" from the control of local guilds or lords [OED]. Related: freemasonic.
funicular (adj.): 1660s, from funicle "a small cord" (1660s), from Latin funiculus "a slender rope," diminutive of funis "a cord, rope," of unknown etymology. De Vaan suggests it is a derivative of the root of filum. A funicular railway (1874) is one worked by a cable from a stationary engine.
Indochina: 1886, from Indo-, comb. form of Greek Indos "India" + China. Name proposed early 19c. by Scottish poet and orientalist John Leyden, who lived and worked in India from 1803 till his death at 35 in 1811.
interwork (v.): c. 1600, from inter- + work (v.). Related: interworking. Past tense can be either interworked or interwrought.
knothead (n.): "stupid person," by 1899, American English, from knot (n.) + head (n.). Joe Knothead is the name of a character in an 1857 blackface satire publication. And a local history from Massachusetts published in 1879 describes an old-time character known as knot-head because "[d]uring the hottest days of summer ... he worked bare-headed in the sun ...."

Knothead also was used as a term in cattle and sheep raising, defined in 1922 as "a type of poorly bred, stunted northern cattle, about the size of yearlings, but with heavy horns indicating that they are older." It turns up, however, in an 1849 petition to the Ohio Legislature, recommending a certain person for a court position, in part because he is a knot-head, which the report of the petition notes is a term of praise for a judge because they are asked to untangle knotty legal questions, but which phrase, it adds, "is believed not to be in use among gentlemen in the north part of the State." [Appendix to the Journal of the Ohio House of Representatives, Session of 1848-9]
lief (adj.): Old English leof "dear, valued, beloved, pleasant;" also as a noun, "a beloved person, friend," from Proto-Germanic *leubo- (cognates: Old Norse ljutr, Old Frisian liaf, Dutch lief, Old High German liob, German lieb, Gothic liufs "dear, beloved"), from PIE root *leubh- "love" (see love (n.)). As an adverb, "dearly, willingly" from c. 1250. I want and I'd love to are overworked and misused to fill the hole left in the language when I would lief faded in 17c.
lubritorium (n.): "place where automobiles are greased," 1928; from lubrication + ending from auditorium. Mentioned as an overworked suffix in the late 1920s; Mencken also lists infantorium, shavatorium, restatorium, hatatorium, and odditorium ("a slide-show").
marionette (n.): puppet worked by strings, c. 1620, literally "little little Mary," from French marionette (16c.), diminutive of Old French mariole "figurine, idol, picture of the Virgin Mary," diminutive of Marie (see Mary). For ending, see -ette.
N: in nickname, newt, and British dialectal naunt, the -n- belongs to a preceding indefinite article an or possessive pronoun mine.

Other examples of this from Middle English manuscripts include a neilond ("an island," early 13c.), a narawe ("an arrow," c. 1400), a nox ("an ox," c. 1400), a noke ("an oak," early 15c.), a nappyle ("an apple," early 15c.), a negge ("an egg," 15c.). In 16c., an idiot sometimes became a nidiot, which, with still-common casual pronunciation, became nidget, which, alas, has not survived.

The process also worked in surnames, from oblique cases of Old English at "by, near," as in Nock/Nokes/Noaks from atten Oke "by the oak;" Nye from atten ye "near the lowland;" and see Nashville.

But it is more common for an English word to lose an -n- to a preceding a: apron, auger, adder, umpire, humble pie, etc. The mathematical use of n for "an indefinite number" is first recorded 1852, in to the nth power.
naive (adj.): 1650s, "natural, simple, artless," from French naïve, fem. of naïf, from Old French naif "naive, natural, genuine; just born; foolish, innocent; unspoiled, unworked" (13c.), from Latin nativus "not artificial," also "native, rustic," literally "born, innate, natural" (see native (adj.)). Related: Naively.
network (v.): 1887, "to cover with a network," from network (n.). From 1940 as "to broadcast over a (radio) network;" 1972 in reference to computers; 1980s in reference to persons. Related: Networked; networking.
ore (n.): 12c., a merger of Old English ora "ore, unworked metal" (related to eorþe "earth," see earth; and cognate with Low German ur "iron-containing ore," Dutch oer, Old Norse aurr "gravel"); and Old English ar "brass, copper, bronze," from Proto-Germanic *ajiz- (cognates: Old Norse eir "brass, copper," German ehern "brazen," Gothic aiz "bronze"), from PIE root *aus- (2) "gold" (see aureate). The two words were not fully assimilated till 17c.; what emerged has the form of ar but the meaning of ora.
organ (n.): fusion of late Old English organe, and Old French orgene (12c.), both meaning "musical instrument," both from Latin organa, plural of organum "a musical instrument," from Greek organon "implement, tool for making or doing; musical instrument; organ of sense, organ of the body," literally "that with which one works," from PIE *werg-ano-, from root *werg- "to do" (cognates: Greek ergon "work," orgia "religious performances;" Armenian gorc "work;" Avestan vareza "work, activity;" Gothic waurkjan, Old English wyrcan "to work," Old English weorc "deed, action, something done;" Old Norse yrka "work, take effect").

Applied vaguely in late Old English to musical instruments; sense narrowed by late 14c. to the musical instrument now known by that name (involving pipes supplied with wind by a bellows and worked by means of keys), though Augustine (c. 400) knew this as a specific sense of Latin organa. The meaning "body part adapted to a certain function" is attested from late 14c., from a Medieval Latin sense of Latin organum. Organist is first recorded 1590s; organ-grinder is attested from 1806.
overwork (v.): "to cause to work too hard," 1520s, from over- + work (v.). Old English oferwyrcan meant "to work all over," i.e. "to decorate the whole surface of." Related: Overworked; overworking.
overwrought (adj.): "worked up to too high a pitch," 1825, literally "over-worked," from over- + wrought. Earlier it meant "exhausted by work" (1660s) as a literal past participle of overwork.
pedal (n.): 1610s, "lever (on an organ) worked by foot," from French pédale "feet, trick with the feet," from Italian pedale "treadle, pedal," from Late Latin pedale "(thing) of the foot," neuter of Latin pedalis "of the foot," from pes (genitive pedis) "foot," from PIE root *ped- (1) "a foot" (see foot (n.)).

Extended to various mechanical contrivances by 1789. Pedal steel guitar is from 1969. Pedal-pushers "type of women's trousers suitable for bicycling" is from 1944.
When college girls took to riding bicycles in slacks, they first rolled up one trouser leg, then rolled up both. This whimsy has now produced a trim variety of long shorts, called "pedal pushers." ["Life," Aug. 28, 1944]
rehash (n.): 1849, from rehash (v.); "old material worked up anew," usually of literary productions.
rework (v.): 1842, from re- + work (v.). Related: Reworked; reworking.
scissors (n.): late 14c., sisoures, from Old French cisoires (plural) "shears," from Vulgar Latin *cisoria (plural) "cutting instrument," from *cisus (in compounds such as Latin excisus, past participle of excidere "to cut out"), ultimately from Latin caedere "to cut" (see -cide). Spelling with sc- is 16c., from influence of Medieval Latin scissor "tailor," in classical Latin "carver, cutter," from past participle stem of scindere "to split."

Usually with pair of (attested from c. 1400) when indication of just one is required, but a singular form without the -s occasionally was used (cysowre, mid-15c.). In Scotland, shears answers for all sizes, according to OED; but in England generally that word is used only for those too large to be worked by one hand. Sense in wrestling is from 1904. Oh scissors! was a 19c. exclamation of impatience or disgust (1843). In reference to a type of swimming kick, from 1902 (the image itself is from 1880s).
swipe (v.): 1825, "strike with a sweeping motion," from swipe (n.). The slang sense of "steal, pilfer" appeared 1885, American English; earliest use in prison jargon:
The blokes in the next cell, little Charley Ames and the Sheeney Kid, they was hot to try it, and swiped enough shoe-lining out of shop No. 5, where they worked, to make us all breeches to the stripes. ["Lippincott's Magazine," vol. 35, June 1885]
Meaning "run a credit card" is 1990s. Related: Swiped; swiper; swiping.
tabard (n.): c. 1300 (late 13c. as a surname), from Old French tabart "simple sleeveless overtunic," also "heavy overmantel" (12c.), of unknown origin; Diez suggests Latin tapete "figured cloth." Compare Medieval Latin tabardum, early Spanish tabardo, Italian tabarro. Originally a coarse, sleeveless upper garment worn by peasants and others who worked out-of-doors; later a knight's surcoat (hence the name of the tavern in "Canterbury Tales").
time zone (n.): by 1885, from time (n.) + zone (n.). As in Britain and France, the movement to regulate time nationally came from the railroads.
Previous to 1883 the methods of measuring time in the United States were so varied and so numerous as to be ludicrous. There were 50 different standards used in the United States, and on one road between New York and Boston, whose actual difference is 12 minutes, there were three distinct standards of time. Even small towns had two different standards one known as "town" or local time and the other "railroad" time.

... At noon on November 18, 1883, there was a general resetting of watches and clocks all over the United States and Canada, and the four great time zones, one hour apart, into which the country was divided came into being. So smoothly did the plan work that the general readjustment was accomplished without great difficulty and it has worked satisfactorily ever since. ["Railroad Trainman," 1909]
treadle (n.): "lever worked by foot," c. 1400, from Old English tredel "step, stair, sole of the foot," from tredan "to tread" (see tread (v.)) + instrumental suffix -el (1). Compare handle (n.).
typhoid (adj.): 1800, literally "resembling typhus," from typhus + -oid. The noun is from 1861, a shortened form of typhoid fever (1845), so called because it originally was thought to be a variety of typhus. Typhoid Mary (1909) was Mary Mallon (d.1938), a typhoid carrier who worked as a cook and became notorious after it was learned she unwittingly had infected hundreds in U.S.
umiak (n.): large Eskimo boat, c. 1743, from Eskimo umiaq "an open skin boat." Said by 18c.-19c. sources to be a "woman's boat," as opposed to the kayak, which was worked exclusively by men.
work (v.): a fusion of Old English wyrcan (past tense worhte, past participle geworht) "prepare, perform, do, make, construct, produce; strive after" (from Proto-Germanic *wurkijan); and Old English wircan (Mercian) "to operate, function, set in motion," a secondary verb formed relatively late from Proto-Germanic noun *werkan (see work (n.)). Sense of "perform physical labor" was in Old English, as was sense "ply one's trade" and "exert creative power, be a creator." Transitive sense "manipulate (physical substances) into a desired state or form" was in Old English. Meaning "have the expected or desired effect" is from late 14c. In Middle English also "perform sexually" (mid-13c.). Related: Worked (15c.); working. To work up "excite" is from c. 1600. To work over "beat up, thrash" is from 1927. To work against "attempt to subvert" is from late 14c.
Yankee Doodle (n.): popular tune of the American Revolution, apparently written c. 1755 by British Army surgeon Dr. Richard Schuckburgh while campaigning with Amherst's force in upper New York during the French and Indian War. The original verses mocked the colonial troops (see Yankee) serving alongside the regulars, and the Doodle element might have been, or hinted at, the 18c. slang term for "penis." The song naturally was popular with British troops in the colonies during the Revolutionary War, but after the colonials began to win skirmishes with them in 1775, they took the tune as a patriotic prize and re-worked the lyrics. The current version seems to have been written in 1776 by Edward Bangs, a Harvard sophomore who also was a Minuteman.
foodaholic: "A person who has an obsession with food; specifically a compulsive eater", 1960s; earliest use found in American Speech. From food + -aholic. More work from Old English:Work is connected with the Greek word ergon, which is the source of energy (late 16th century), ergonomic [1950s], and surgeon. Wrought, meaning ‘made in a particular way’ and found in wrought iron (early 18th century), is the old past form of work, which people used where we now use worked. Wright, a common surname that means ‘maker’ and is found in words such as shipwright (Old English) and wheelwright (Middle English), is also closely related to work. The first workaholic was mentioned in 1968. Since then we have had chocaholics and shopaholics, but the first word to be formed in this way from alcoholic was foodaholic, in 1965. The dictum ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available’ is known as Parkinson's law. It was first expressed by Professor C. Northcote Parkinson in 1955. Much older is the proverb All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, which is first found in 1659. See also devil
phoney: "Not genuine; fraudulent", Late 19th century: of unknown origin. More The fraudulent practice of the fawney-rig is probably the source of phoney ‘not genuine, fraudulent’, which was first recorded in the USA at the end of the 19th century. In 1823 Pierce Egan, a chronicler of popular pursuits and low life in England, described how the fawney-rig worked. ‘A fellow drops a brass ring, double gilt, which he picks up before the party meant to be cheated, and to whom he disposes of it for less than its supposed, and ten times more than its real, value.’ The word fawney came from Irish fáinne ‘a ring’. The phoney war was the period of comparative inaction at the beginning of the Second World War, between the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and that of Norway in April 1940. The expression is now used of any coming confrontation, as in ‘the debates on tax in the pre-election phoney war’ (Earth Matters, 1997).