ask: [OE] The Old English ancestor of ask existed in two main forms: āscian and ācsian. The first produced descendants such as asshe, which died out in the 16th century; the second resulted in axe (still extant in some dialects), which by metathesis – the reversal of the consonant sounds k and s – became modern English ask. Ultimately the word comes from a prehistoric West Germanic verb *aiskōjan (source of German heischen, a poetical term for ‘ask’); cognates in other, non-Germanic, Indo- European languages include Latin aeruscāre ‘beg’ and Sanskrit iccháti ‘seek’.
Old English ascian "ask, call for an answer; make a request," from earlier ahsian, from Proto-Germanic *aiskon (cognates: Old Saxon escon, Old Frisian askia "request, demand, ask," Middle Dutch eiscen, Dutch eisen "to ask, demand," Old High German eiscon "to ask (a question)," German heischen "to ask, demand"), from PIE *ais- "to wish, desire" (cognates: Sanskrit icchati "seeks, desires," Armenian aic "investigation," Old Church Slavonic iskati "to seek," Lithuanian ieškau "to seek").
Form in English influenced by a Scandinavian cognate (such as Danish æske; the Old English would have evolved by normal sound changes into ash, esh, which was a Midlands and southwestern England dialect form). Modern dialectal ax is as old as Old English acsian and was an accepted literary variant until c. 1600. Related: Asked; asking. Old English also had fregnan/frignan which carried more directly the sense of "question, inquire," and is from PIE root *prek-, the common source of words for "ask" in most Indo-European languages (see pray). If you ask me "in my opinion" is attested from 1910. Asking price is attested from 1755.
双语例句
1. That was Nicholas's cue to ask for another chocolate chip cookie.
那表示尼古拉斯还想要一块巧克力曲奇。
来自柯林斯例句
2. He was too proud to ask his family for help and support.
他自尊心太强，不愿向家人寻求帮助和支持。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Can I just ask something 'cos I'm really quite interested in this.
我能不能问个问题，因为我对这个真的很感兴趣。
来自柯林斯例句
4. They try to tease out the answers without appearing to ask.
他们试图不动声色地套出答案。
来自柯林斯例句
5. We rang Duncan to ask where he was going on holiday.
