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wafer [wafer 词源字典]: wafer: [14] Wafer and waffle [18] are essentially the same word. Both come ultimately from a Low German term whose underlying etymological meaning was of a ‘honeycomb’- patterned cake or biscuit – a sense wafer has since lost. The ancestral form was wāfel, which seems to have come from the prehistoric Germanic base *wab-, *web- (source of English weave) and is probably related to German wabe ‘honeycomb’.

Old French borrowed Middle Low German wāfel as gaufre (which is where English got goffer ‘crimp’ [18] from). The Anglo-Norman version of this was wafre – whence English wafer. Waffle was borrowed direct into American English from Dutch wafel. (The verb waffle ‘speak verbosely’ [19], incidentally, is not the same word. It is a derivative of an earlier waff [17], used for the sounds a dog makes, which like woof was of imitative origin.)
=> goffer, waffle, weave, web[wafer etymology, wafer origin, 英语词源]
waft: waft: [16] A wafter was an ‘armed ship used for convoying others’ (the word was borrowed from Middle Dutch wachter ‘guard’, which came from the same prehistoric Germanic base as English wait, wake, and watch). The verb waft was derived from it by back-formation, and at first was used for ‘convey by water, convoy’ (‘Because certain pirates … were lurking at the Thames mouth … Thomas Lord Camoys with certain ships of war was appointed to waft over the king’, Edward Hall, Chronicle 1548). The change from ‘conveyance by water’ to ‘conveyance through the air’ began in the 17th century.
=> wait, wake, watch
wag: wag: [13] Wag was derived from the Middle English descendant of Old English wagian ‘totter’, a word related to English wave of the sea. Waggle [15] was based on it. The noun wag ‘comical fellow’, first recorded in the 16th century, is generally taken to be short for waghalter, literally ‘someone who swings to and fro in a noose’, hence ‘someone destined for the gallows’.
=> waggle
wage: wage: [14] Wage and gage (as in engage) are doublets – that is to say, they come from the same ultimate source, but have drifted apart over the centuries. The source in this case was prehistoric Germanic *wathjam ‘pledge’, which is also the ancestor of English wedding. It was borrowed into Old French as gage, which is where English gets gage from; but its Anglo- Norman form was wage, which accounts for English wage. Gage, engage, and the derivative wager [14] all preserve to some degree the original notion of ‘giving a pledge or security’, but wage has moved on via ‘payment’ to ‘payment for work done’.
=> engage, gage, wager, wedding
waggon: waggon: [16] Waggon was borrowed from Dutch wagen. It has gradually replaced the native English form wain ‘waggon’ [OE]. Both words go back via prehistoric Germanic *wagnaz, *wegnaz to Indo-European *woghnos, *weghnos, a derivative of the base *wogh-, *wegh- ‘carry’ (which also produced English vehicle, way, weigh, etc).
=> vehicle, vex, wain, wainscot, way, weigh
wainscot: wainscot: [14] Wainscot was borrowed from Middle Low German wagenschot. It is not altogether clear what the origins of this were, but the generally accepted theory is that it is a compound of wagen ‘waggon’ and schot ‘planks, boards’, and that it therefore originally meant ‘planks used for making waggons’. To begin with it was applied in English to ‘highgrade oak imported from Russia, Germany, and Holland’. Such wood was used mainly for panelling rooms, and by the 16th century wainscot had come to signify ‘wood panelling’.
=> waggon, wain
waist: waist: [14] Waist is something of a mystery word, but it is generally taken to denote etymologically ‘girth to which one has grown’. It is probably descended from an unrecorded Old English *wæst, which would have gone back to prehistoric Germanic *wakhs- ‘grow’, source of English wax ‘grow’ (as in wax and wane). Related forms which support this hypothesis include Icelandic vöxstr and Gothic wahstus, which mean ‘growth, size’.
wait: wait: [12] Wait originally meant ‘look, spy’. But the notion of remaining in hiding, keeping a watch on one’s enemies’ movements led via the sense ‘remain, stay (in expectation)’ to, in the 17th century, ‘defer action’. The word was borrowed from Old Northern French waitier, which was itself a loanword from prehistoric Germanic *wakhtan (ultimate source also of English waft). This in turn was formed from the base *wak-, which also produced English wake, watch, etc. The sense ‘serve food at table’ emerged in the 16th century from an earlier ‘attend on’.
=> waft, wake, watch
waive: waive: [13] To waive something is etymologically to make a ‘waif’ of it. The word comes from Anglo-Norman weyver, a derivative of the noun weif (source of English waif [14]). This originally meant ‘ownerless property’, and so the verb came to be used for ‘abandon’. Its specific application in English to ‘relinquishing a right’ emerged in English in the 15th century. Anglo-Norman weif itself was ultimately of Scandinavian origin.
=> waif
wake: wake: English has two distinct words wake. The older, ‘not sleep’ [OE], goes back ultimately to the prolific Indo-European base *wog-, *weg- ‘be active or lively’. This proliferated semantically in many directions, including ‘growth’ (in which it gave English vegetable) and ‘staying awake’, which developed into ‘watching’ and from there into ‘guarding’ (all three preserved in vigil).

The original sense ‘liveliness’ is represented in vigour. The prehistoric Germanic base *wak- took over the ‘not sleep, watch’ group of senses. From it was derived the verb *wakōjan, which subsequently split into two in English, producing wake and watch. The noun wake, which (unlike the verb) preserves the ‘watch’ strand of meaning (now specialized to ‘watching over a dead body’), comes from the same base. Waken [12] was borrowed from the related Old Norse vakna. Wake ‘track of a boat’ [16] probably came via Middle Low German wake from Old Norse vök ‘hole in the ice’.
=> vegetable, vigil, vigour, waft, wait, watch
walk: walk: [OE] Walk originally meant ‘roll about, toss’ (an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon glossary translated Latin ferventis oceani as ‘walking sea’). This gradually broadened out via ‘move about’ to ‘go on a journey’, but the specific application to ‘travelling on foot’ did not emerge until the 13th century. The verb came from a prehistoric Germanic *walkan, which also produced Dutch walken ‘make felt by beating’ and French gauchir ‘turn aside, detour’ (source of English gauche [18]). It is ultimately related to Sanskrit valgati ‘hops’.
=> gauche
wall: wall: [OE] Wall was borrowed into Old English from Latin vallum ‘rampart’. This originally denoted a ‘stockade made of stakes’, and it was derived from vallus ‘stake’. German wall, Dutch wal, and Swedish vall, also borrowings from Latin, preserve its meaning ‘rampart, embankment’, but English wall has become considerably wider in its application. An interval is etymologically a space ‘between ramparts’.
=> interval
wallet: wallet: [19] Etymologically, a wallet may be something ‘rolled’ up. The word originally denoted a ‘traveller’s pack’; its application to a ‘small flat case for money and papers’ arose in 19th-century American English. It was probably borrowed from an Anglo-Norman *walet, which could have been formed from the prehistoric Germanic base *wal- ‘roll’ (source also of English wallow).
wallop: wallop: [14] Wallop and gallop are doublets – that is to say, they began life as the same word, but have gradually drifted apart. Their ultimate common source was Frankish *walahlaupan ‘jump well’. This was a compound verb formed from *wala ‘well’ and *hlaupan ‘jump’, a relative of English leap. This was borrowed into Old French as galoper, which gave English gallop.

But the northern dialect of Old French took it over as waloper, which is where English wallop comes from. This was originally used for ‘gallop’ (‘Came there king Charlemagne, as fast as his horse might wallop’. William Caxton, Four Sons of Aymon 1489), but after the acquisition of gallop it began to go steadily downhill semantically, helped on its way perhaps by its sound, suggestive of hitting.
=> gallop
wallow: wallow: [OE] To wallow is etymologically to ‘roll’ about. The word goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *wol-, *wel- ‘roll’, which also produced English helix, involve, vault, volume, etc. From this was descended prehistoric Germanic *wal-, *wel- (source of English waltz, welter, etc, and possibly of wallet). The extended form *walw- produced West Germanic *walwōjan, which evolved into English wallow.
=> involve, revolve, volume, waltz, welter
walnut: walnut: [OE] A walnut is etymologically a ‘foreign nut’. Its name alludes to the fact that the nut was regarded by the Germanic peoples as an exotic import from southern Europe, land of Romans and Celts (their own native nut was the hazel). Prehistoric Germanic *walkhaz originally meant ‘Celtic’ (it was borrowed from Latin Volcae, the name of a Celtic people), but it soon broadened out to include anyone or anything foreign (including the Romans) within its scope.

Its original Celtic connotations survive, however, in Welsh and Walloon (the name of a people of Gaulish origin), both of which go back to *walkhaz. English shares the formation walnut with its Germanic neighbours – German walnuss, Dutch walnoot, Swedish valnöt, and Danish valnød.
=> walloon, welsh
walrus: walrus: [17] Etymologically, a walrus is probably a ‘whale-horse’. The word seems to have been borrowed from Dutch walrus, which was an inversion of a presumed prehistoric Germanic compound represented by Old English horschwæl and Old Norse hrosshvalr. (The inversion may have been due to the influence of Dutch walvisch ‘whale’ – literally ‘whale-fish’ – but it could also owe something to French influence, since French noun compounds of this sort are often in the reverse order to corresponding Germanic ones.) The element wal- is clearly the same word as whale, and -rus is generally assumed to be horse.

It has, however, been suggested that the horsc- of the Old English term was an alteration of morsa, a name for the walrus of Lappish origin which is also the source of French morse ‘walrus’.
=> horse, whale
waltz: waltz: [18] To waltz is etymologically to ‘roll’. The word was adapted from German walzen. This meant literally ‘roll, revolve’. Its application to a dance that involves spinning round is a secondary development. It came from the prehistoric Germanic base *wal-, *wel- ‘roll’, which also produced English wallow, welter, etc, and it is ultimately related to English involve, volume, etc.
=> wallow
wand: wand: [12] A wand is etymologically a ‘bendable’ stick. The word was borrowed from Old Norse vöndr ‘thin straight stick’. This in turn went back to a prehistoric Germanic *wanduz, which was derived from *wand-, *wend- ‘turn’ (source also of English wander, went, etc). A stick that can be ‘turned’ is one that can be ‘bent’, hence a ‘flexible stick’. The earliest record of the word’s use for a ‘stick with magic powers’ comes from the 15th century.
=> wander, went
wander: wander: [OE] To wander is etymologically to ‘turn’ off the correct path. The word comes, together with German wandern, from a prehistoric West Germanic *wandrōjan, which was derived from the base *wand-, *wend- ‘turn’ (source also of English wand, went, etc). The German compound wanderlust, literally ‘traveldesire’, was borrowed into English at the beginning of the 20th century.
=> wand, went