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hack [hack 词源字典]: hack: English has two distinct words hack. By far the older, ‘cut savagely or randomly’ [OE], goes back via Old English haccian to a prehistoric West Germanic *khak-, also reproduced in German hacken and Dutch hakken. It perhaps originated in imitation of the sound of chopping. Hack ‘worn-out horse’ [17] is short for hackney (as in hackney carriage), a word in use since the 14th century in connection with hired horses.

It is thought that this may be an adaptation of the name of Hackney, now an inner-London borough but once a village on the northeastern outskirts of the capital where horses were raised before being taken into the city for sale or hire. Most rented horses being past their best from long and probably ill usage, hackney came to mean ‘broken-down horse’ and hence in general ‘drudge’.

This quickly became respecified to ‘someone who writes for hire, and hence unimaginatively’, which influenced the development of hackneyed ‘trite’ [18]. The modern sense of hacker, ‘someone who gains unauthorized access to computer records’, comes from a slightly earlier ‘one who works like a hack – that is, very hard – at writing and experimenting with software’.
[hack etymology, hack origin, 英语词源]
jade: jade: English has two words jade, of which by far the commoner nowadays is the name of the green stone [18]. Despite the mineral’s close association with China and Japan, the term has no Oriental connections. It is of Latin origin, and started life in fact as a description of the stone’s medical applications. Latin īlia denoted the ‘sides of the lower torso’, the ‘flanks’, the part of the body where the kidneys are situated (English gets iliac [16] from it).

In Vulgar Latin this became *iliata, which passed into Spanish as ijada. Now it was thought in former times that jade could cure pain in the renal area, so the Spanish called it piedra de ijada, literally ‘stone of the flanks’. In due course this was reduced to simply ijada, which passed into English via French. (Jade’s alternative name, nephrite [18], is based on the same idea; it comes from Greek nephrós ‘kidney’.) English’s other word jade [14] now survives really only in its derivative adjective jaded ‘tired, sated’ [16].

It originally meant ‘worn-out horse’, and was later transferred metaphorically to ‘disreputable woman’. Its origins are not known.
=> iliac; jaded
beat up (v.): "thrash, strike repeatedly," c. 1900 (v.), from beat (v.). Beat-up as an adjectival phrase meaning "worn-out" dates to 1946.
cheapskate (n.): also cheap skate, "miserly person," 1896, from cheap (adj.), second element perhaps from American English slang skate "worn-out horse" (1894), which is of uncertain origin.
cliche (n.): 1825, "electrotype, stereotype," from French cliché, a technical word in printer's jargon for "stereotype block," noun use of past participle of clicher "to click" (18c.), supposedly echoic of the sound of a mold striking molten metal. Figurative extension to "trite phrase, worn-out expression" is first attested 1888, following the course of stereotype. Related: Cliched (1928).
clunker (n.): "anything inferior," 1940s, agent noun from clunk (v.), probably in imitation of the sounds made by old machinery. Specific sense of "old car" was in use by 1951 (clunk in the sense "old worn-out machine" is from 1940s).
frazzle (n.): "worn-out condition," 1865, American English, from frazzle (v.).
hulk (n.): Old English hulc "light, fast ship" (but in Middle English a heavy, unwieldy one), probably from Old Dutch hulke and Medieval Latin hulcus, perhaps ultimately from Greek holkas "merchant ship," literally "ship that is towed," from helkein "to pull" (from PIE root *selk- "to pull, draw"). Meaning "body of an old, worn-out ship" is first recorded 1670s. The Hulks ("Great Expectations") were old ships used as prisons. Sense of "big, clumsy person" is first recorded c. 1400 (early 14c. as a surname: Stephen le Hulke).
HULK. In the sixteenth century the large merchantman of the northern nations. As she grew obsolete, her name was applied in derision to all crank vessels, until it came to be degraded to its present use, i.e., any old vessel unfit for further employment. [Geoffrey Callender, "Sea Passages," 1943]
jade (n.2): "worn-out horse," late 14c., "cart horse," of uncertain origin. Barnhart suggests a variant of yaid, yald "whore," literally "mare," from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse jalda "mare," from Finno-Ugric (compare Mordvin al'd'a "mare"). But OED finds the assumption of a Scandinavian connection "without reason." As a term of abuse for a woman, it dates from 1550s.
knacker (v.): usually in past tense, knackered, "to kill, castrate" (1855), but most often used in weakened sense of "to tire out" (1883); apparently from knacker (n.) "worn-out or useless horse," 1812, of unknown origin; possibly from a dialectal survival of a Scandinavian word represented by Old Norse hnakkur "saddle," hnakki "back of the neck," and thus possibly related to neck (n.).
rip (n.2): "thing of little value," 1815, earlier "inferior or worn-out horse" (1778), perhaps altered from slang rep (1747) "man of loose character; vicious, reckless and worthless person," which itself is perhaps short for reprobate (n.).
Rosinante (n.): Don Quixote's horse, from Spanish Rocinante, from rocin "worn-out horse" + antes "before," "so called in allusion to the circumstance that Don Quixote's charger was formerly a wretched hack" [Klein]. Rocin is cognate with Old French rancin "draft horse, hack," but the word is of unknown origin.
worn (adj.): c. 1500, from adjectival use of past participle of wear (v.); from Old English geworen. Worn-out "exhausted by wear, made ineffective by overuse" is attested from 1610s in reference to things, c. 1700 in reference to persons.