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nonchalant [nonchalant 词源字典]: nonchalant: [18] To be nonchalant is etymologically ‘not to get hot under the collar’. The word comes from French nonchalant, an adjective formed with the prefix non- ‘not’ from the present participle of the verb chaloir ‘be concerned’. This goes back ultimately to Latin calēre ‘be hot’ (a relative of English calorie and cauldron).
=> calorie, cauldron, lukewarm[nonchalant etymology, nonchalant origin, 英语词源]
none: none: [OE] Etymologically, none is simply ‘not one’. It was formed in the Old English period from the negative particle ne and ān, ancestor of modern English one. It was originally both a pronoun and an adjective, but in the latter role it has been replaced by its reduced form no.
=> one
nonpareil: nonpareil: see pair
nonplus: nonplus: see plural
noon: noon: [OE] Noon denotes etymologically the ‘ninth’ hour. It was adopted in the Old English period from Latin nōna, short for nōna hōra, the ‘ninth hour’. Reckoning the day from sunrise, on average six o’clock, this meant that ‘noon’ was three o’clock in the afternoon (which was originally when the office of nones [18] – a related word – was said in the Roman catholic church).

By the 12th century, however, we find noon being used for a ‘midday meal’, and in the early 13th century it had moved on to simply ‘midday’, so it appears that some forward shifting of a meal that had originally taken place in mid afternoon was responsible for altering the meaning of noon (modern English terms for mealtimes, such as tea and dinner, are equally slippery).
=> nine
noose: noose: [15] The notion underlying the word noose is of a ‘knot’, rather than of a ‘loop of rope made with a knot’. The word comes from nos or nous, the Old French descendant of Latin nodus ‘knot’. This was the source of English node [16], of course, and of the diminutive form nodule [16], but it has also made a couple of less obvious contributions to English: dénouement [18], which comes via a French word denoting literally the ‘untying of a knot’, and newel [14] ‘staircase post’, which was borrowed from Old French nouel ‘knob’, a descendant of the medieval Latin diminutive nōdellus.
=> dénouement, newel, node, nodule
nor: nor: [14] Nor began life in the Old English period as nother. This was a compound formed from the negative particle and an unrecorded *ōther, a word related to either which expressed the notion of ‘alternative’. In the Middle English period this was contracted to nor.
=> either
normal: normal: [17] Latin norma originally denoted a sort of set square used by carpenters, masons, etc for measuring right angles. It was extended metaphorically to a ‘rule, pattern, precept’, but English originally took over its derivative normālis as a mathematical term, in the fairly literal sense ‘perpendicular’. The more familiar modern sense ‘standard, usual’ did not emerge until the 19th century, at about the same time as normality, normalcy, and norm itself began to appear on the scene.
Norman: Norman: [13] Etymologically, the Normans were and are ‘men of the north’, a reference to the Scandinavians who settled in northern France in the 9th century and whose possession of the region, under their leader Rollo, was officially recognized by the French king in 911. The word originated in Old Norse northmathr, literally ‘northman’. In Old French that became normant or normand. That had a brief currency in English in the Middle Ages, but it was its plural form normans, shorn of its -s, that provided the standard modern English term.
north: north: [OE] North is a general West and North Germanic word for ‘north’, represented also in German, Swedish, and Danish nord and Dutch noorden. It was also borrowed into French (from Old English) as nord, from where it spread into Italian and Romanian as nord and into Spanish as norte. It is not known for certain where it came from, but a link has been suggested with nertro-, a word for ‘left’ in the extinct Oscan- Umbrian languages of Italy, which might mean that the underlying meaning of north is ‘to the left as one faces the rising sun’ (modern Irish tuaisceart ‘north’ was based on a word meaning ‘left’).
nose: nose: [OE] Nose is the English member of a widespread family of ‘nose’-words that trace their ancestry back to Indo-European *nas-. This has produced Latin nāsus (source of English nasal [17]), Sanskrit nás, Lithuanian nósis, and Russian, Polish, Czech, and Serbo-Croat nos. Its Germanic descendant has differentiated into German nase, Dutch neus, Swedish näsa, Danish næse, and English nose. Nozzle [17] and nuzzle [15] are probably derived from nose, and ness ‘promontory, headland’ [OE] (now encountered only in place-names) is related to it.
=> nasal, ness, nostril, nozzle, nuzzle
nostalgia: nostalgia: [18] Etymologically, nostalgia is pain connected with returning home – in other words, homesickness. It is a modern coinage, based ultimately on Greek nostos ‘homecoming’ and algos ‘pain, grief’ (as in analgesic [19] and neuralgia (see NEURAL)). At first it was used as the name of what was regarded virtually as a form of mental illness (the earliest known record of it is in the journal kept by the botanist and explorer Joseph Banks on Captain Cook’s round-the-world voyage, in which he noted (1770) that most of the ship’s company were ‘now pretty far gone with the longing for home which the Physicians have gone so far as to esteem a disease under the name of Nostalgia’).

The milder present-day connotations of wistful longing for a past time emerged in the early 20th century.
nostril: nostril: [OE] Etymologically, a nostril is a ‘nosehole’. Its Old English ancestor was nosthyrl, a compound formed from nosu ‘nose’ and thyrl ‘hole’. This was a derivative of thurh ‘through’, and still survives as thirl, a dialectal word for ‘hole’.
=> nose, thrill, through
not: not: [14] In Old English and early Middle English the simple particle ne was used for making negative sentences. But it was evidently often felt to be in need of some reinforcement, for purposes of emphasis, and to do this job noht was brought in. Ancestor of modern English nought [OE], it was a compound formed from ne and ōwiht ‘anything’ (precursor of archaic modern English ought).

By the end of the 13th century this was being widely used as the sole negator in sentences, the ne having been dispensed with, and we soon find spellings reflecting the sort of reduction in pronunciation from nought to not that one would expect from its often weakly-stressed position.
=> nought, ought
notable: notable: see note
notary: notary: see note
notch: notch: [16] Not much is known for certain about the word notch, apart from the fact that its immediate source, Anglo-Norman noche, existed at least a couple of centuries before English acquired it. There may well be some connection with Old French oche ‘groove, notch’ (probable source of the English darts term oche ‘line where the dart-thrower stands’); the initial n could well have arisen by misdivision of a preceding indefinite article (as happened with nickname).
=> oche
note: note: [13] Latin nota had a remarkably wide range of meanings. Its original sense was ‘sign, mark’, but already in classical times it had broadened out semantically to include ‘alphabetical character’, ‘shorthand sign’, ‘brief letter’, ‘musical note’, and ‘characteristic quality’. Many of these followed it via Old French note into English, where they were supplemented by ‘distinction, reputation’, perhaps inspired by the derived adjective notable [14]. From the same source came notary [14], etymologically a ‘shorthand-writer’.
notice: notice: [15] One of the main Latin verbs for ‘know’ was nōscere (earlier gnōscere), a distant relative of English know and, via the derived cognōscere, source of a wide range of English words, from cognizance to reconnaissance. From its past participle nōtus was formed the noun nōtitia, which denoted ‘knowledge, acquaintance’.

English took this over via Old French notice, and at first used it only for ‘advance knowledge, warning’ (as in ‘give someone notice of something’). The main modern sense, ‘heed, attention’ (as in ‘take notice of’), did not emerge until the end of the 16th century (and the use of the verb notice for ‘observe, perceive’ is later still, dating from the mid-18th century).

Also from the Latin past participial stem nōt- come notify [14], notion [16], and notorious.
=> cognition, know, noble, notion, notorious, reconnaissance
notorious: notorious: [16] Notorious originally meant simply ‘well known’. It was borrowed from medieval Latin nōtōrius, which was a derivative of nōtus ‘known’, the past participle of Latin nōscere ‘know’ (source also of English notice, notion, etc). The English word very soon came to be used in association with derogatory nouns (as in ‘a notorious liar’), and by the early 17th century the adjective itself had taken on negative connotations. (Noble, which comes from the same ultimate source and likewise etymologically means ‘known’, has gone up in the world as far as notorious has gone down.)
=> notice