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conundrum [conundrum 词源字典]: conundrum: [16] Conundrum originally appeared in all manner of weird and wonderful guises – conimbrum, conuncrum, quonundrum, connunder, etc – before settling down to conundrum in the late 18th century. It bears all the marks of one of the rather heavy-handed quasi-Latin joke words beloved of scholars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a mid-17thcentury commentator attributed it to Oxford university. At first it meant ‘whim’ and then ‘pun’; the current sense ‘puzzling problem’ did not develop until the end of the 18th century.
[conundrum etymology, conundrum origin, 英语词源]
convalesce: convalesce: [15] Latin valēre meant ‘be strong or healthy’ (from it English gets valiant, valid, valour, and value). Derived from it was valēscere ‘grow strong’, which, with the addition of the intensive prefix com- produced convalēscere, source of English convalesce. It was quite a commonly used word in Scottish English from earliest times, but does not seem to have established itself south of the border until the 19th century.
=> valiant, valid, valour, value
convenient: convenient: [14] Convenient comes from Latin conveniēns, the present participle of convenire ‘come together, be suitable, agree’, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘together’ and venire ‘come’ (a distant relative of English come). Convenient reflects the more figurative of convenire’s meanings, as ultimately does covenant, but its original literal sense ‘assemble’ is preserved in convene [15], convention [15], convent, and coven.
=> convent, convention, coven, covenant, venue
convent: convent: [13] Latin conventus meant ‘assembly’ (it was the past participle of convenire ‘come together’, source of English convenient), but as it passed via Anglo-Norman covent into English it acquired the specialized sense ‘religious community’ (in early use it was applied to communities of either sex, but since the end of the 18th century it has come to be used exclusively for a ‘house of nuns’).

Until the mid- 15th century the Anglo-Norman spelling covent was retained in English (it survives in Covent Garden, which was formerly a vegetable garden belonging to the monks of Westminster Abbey, and may also the the source of coven [16]).
=> convenient, coven, venue
converge: converge: see verge
conversation: conversation: [14] Latin convertere meant ‘turn round, transform’. It was a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and vertere ‘turn’ (source of English verse, version, and vertigo). It has spawned a variety of English words, its most direct descendant being convert [13]. Its past participle conversus produced the noun converse ‘opposite’ [16], but this should not be confused with the verb converse ‘talk’ [14], which came via quite a different route.

Latin vertere had a specialized form, vertāre, denoting repeated action. From it came versārī ‘live, occupy oneself’, which, with the addition of the com- prefix, produced conversārī ‘live, dwell, associate or communicate with others’. This passed via Old French converser into English, but at first both it and its derivative conversation were limited semantically to the notion of ‘dwelling’ and ‘social life’; the specific modern sense ‘talk’ was not brought into play until the late 16th century.
=> convert, verse, version
convex: convex: [16] Convex was borrowed from Latin convexus, mainly an architectural term meaning ‘arched, vaulted’. The element -vexus probably came from vehere ‘carry’ (source of English vehicle), the notion being that vaults are ‘carried together’ (Latin com- ‘together’) to meet at a point at the centre of a roof, although some have speculated that it is related to Latin vārus ‘bent, knock-kneed’ (source of English prevaricate).
=> vehicle, vex
convey: convey: [13] Etymologically, to convey something is to go with it on its way. It comes via Old French conveier from medieval Latin conviāre ‘accompany, escort’, a compound verb formed from the prefix com- ‘with’ and via ‘way’. The verb’s Latin meaning was carried through into English, and though it died out in convey in the 18th century it survives in convoy [14], borrowed from a later French version of the word.
=> convoy, via
convince: convince: [16] Latin convincere meant originally ‘overcome decisively’ (it was a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and vincere ‘defeat’, source of English victory). It branched out semantically to ‘overcome in argument’, ‘prove to be false or guilty’; and when borrowed into English it brought these meanings with it. Before long they died out, leaving ‘cause to believe’, which developed in the 17th century, as the only current sense, but ‘find or prove guilty’ survives in convict [14], acquired from the Latin past participle convictus.
=> convict, victory
convivial: convivial: see vivid
convoke: convoke: see vocation
convolution: convolution: see volume
convolvulus: convolvulus: see volume
convoy: convoy: see convey
cony: cony: [13] The rabbit was not originally native to northern Europe, so there is no Germanic word for it. Cony was introduced into English (originally in the sense ‘rabbit fur’, not until a century later for the animal itself) from Anglo- Norman conis, which was the plural of conil. This in turn came from Latin cunīculus, which is thought to have been borrowed from an ancient language of Spain or Portugal. The word rabbit was introduced in the 14th century, originally denoting the ‘young of a rabbit’, but gradually replacing cony as the general term for the animal.
cook: cook: [OE] The noun cook is a lot more ancient than the verb, which in English was a 14thcentury development from the noun. The noun itself was borrowed in Old English times from Vulgar Latin cōcus, a descendant of classical Latin coquus. This is of Indo-European origin, and has been linked with Greek péssein ‘cook, boil’. Also from Latin coquus English gets concoct and biscuit, but cookie [18], a borrowing from Dutch koekje, is, despite its similarity, related not to cook but to cake.
=> apricot, concoct, cuisine, culinary, kiln, kitchen, pepsin, precocious
cool: cool: [OE] Cool comes from the same source as cold, namely Indo-European *gel-, *gol- (from which English also gets congeal, gel, and jelly). The Germanic descendants of this Indo- European base were *kal-, *kōl-. From these were derived the Germanic adjective *kōluz, which passed into Old English as cōl. Its use for ‘fashionable, hip’ is mid-20th-century, but its nonchalant application to large sums of money is of surprisingly long standing: ‘I just made a couple of bets with him, took up a cool hundred, and so went to the King’s Arms’, John Vanbrugh and Colly Cibber, The Provok’d Husband 1728.
=> cold, congeal, gel, jelly
coolie: coolie: [17] Coolie is not etymologically related to cool. It comes from Hindi kulī, which may be the same word as Kulī, the name of an aboriginal tribe of Gujarat in western India. It has been speculated that the word was transported by the Portuguese from there to southern India and thence to China (it is now mainly applied to Far Eastern labourers), its meaning perhaps influenced by Tamil kūli ‘hire’.
coop: coop: see cup
cooperate: cooperate: see operate