英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

cotton-picking (adj.)[cotton-picking 词源字典]: 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]
[cotton-picking etymology, cotton-picking origin, 英语词源]
heifer (n.): Old English heahfore, West Saxon; Northumbrian hehfaro, heffera (plural), of unknown origin, not found outside English. The first element seems to be heah "high," common in Old English compounds with a sense of "great in size." The second element may be related to Old English fearr "bull," or to Old English faran "to go" (giving the whole a sense of "high-stepper"); but there are serious sense difficulties with both conjectures. Liberman offers this alternative:
Old English seems to have had the word *hægfore 'heifer.' The first element (*hæg-) presumably meant 'enclosure' (as do haw and hedge), whereas -fore was a suffix meaning 'dweller, occupant' ....
In modern use a female that has not yet calved, as opposed to a cow, which has, and a calf, which is an animal of either sex not more than a year old. As derisive slang for "a woman, girl" it dates from 1835.
hog (n.): late 12c. (implied in hogaster), "swine reared for slaughter" (usually about a year old), also used by stockmen for "young sheep" (mid-14c.) and for "horse older than one year," suggesting the original sense had something to do with an age, not a type of animal. Not evidenced in Old English, but it may have existed. Possibility of British Celtic origin [Watkins, etc.] is regarded by OED as "improbable." Figurative sense of "gluttonous person" is first recorded early 15c. Meaning "Harley-Davidson motorcycle" is attested from 1967.

To go hog wild is from 1904. Hog in armor "awkward or clumsy person in ill-fitting attire" is from 1650s. Phrase to go the whole hog (1828) is sometimes said to be from the butcher shop option of buying the whole slaughtered animal (at a discount) rather than just the choice bits. But it is perhaps rather from the story (recorded in English from 1779) of Muslim sophists, forbidden by the Quran from eating a certain unnamed part of the hog, who debated which part was intended and managed to exempt the whole of it from the prohibition. Road hog is attested from 1886.
shoat (n.): also shote, "a young weaned pig," early 15c., perhaps from a Low German word (compare West Flemish schote "pig under 1 year old"), of unknown origin.
superannuated (adj.): 1630s, "obsolete, out of date;" 1740, "retired on account of old age," from Modern Latin superannuatus, alteration (perhaps by influence of annual) of Medieval Latin superannatus (which meant "more than a year old" and was used of cattle), from Latin super "beyond, over" (see super-) + annus "year" (see annual (adj.)). Earlier in same sense was superannate (c. 1600), from Medieval Latin superannatus. Compare French suranner.
veterinarian (n.): animal doctor, 1640s, from Latin veterinarius "of or having to do with beasts of burden," also, as a noun, "cattle doctor," from veterinum "beast of burden," perhaps from vetus (genitive veteris) "old" (see veteran), possibly from the notion of "experienced," or of "one year old" (hence strong enough to draw burdens). Another theory connects it to Latin vehere "to draw," on notion of "used as a draft animal." Replaced native dog-leech (1520s).
yearling (n.): "animal a year old or in its second year," mid-15c., from year + -ling. Year-old (n.) in this sense is from 1530s.