英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

havoc [havoc 词源字典]: havoc: [15] The ancestry of havoc is a mystery, but it seems originally to have been an exclamation, probably Germanic, used as a signal to begin plundering. This was adopted into Old French as havot, which was used in the phrase crier havot ‘shout ‘havot’,’ hence ‘let loose destruction and plunder’. Havot became altered in Anglo-Norman to havok, the form in which English adopted it; and in due course cry havoc gave rise to the independent use of havoc as ‘destruction, devastation’.
[havoc etymology, havoc origin, 英语词源]
hawk: hawk: English has three current words hawk. The oldest, denoting the bird of prey [OE], comes from a prehistoric West and North Germanic *khabukaz, which also produced German habicht, Dutch havik, Swedish hök, and Danish hög. Hawk ‘peddle’ [16] is a back-formation from hawker. This was probably borrowed from Low German höker, a derivative ultimately of Middle Low German hōken ‘peddle’, which may well have been formed from the same base as produced English huckster. Hawk ‘clear the throat’ [16] probably originated as an imitation of the noise it denotes.
=> huckster
hawthorn: hawthorn: [OE] The hawthorn appears to be etymologically the ‘hedgethorn’. Its first element, haw, which in Old English was haga, goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *khag-, which also produced English hedge and possibly haggard (German hagedorn, Dutch haagdoorn, and Swedish hagtorn share the same ancestry). The name of the tree’s fruit, haw [OE], is presumably either a back-formation from hawthorn, or an abbreviation of some lost term such as *hawberry ‘hedgeberry’. Hawfinch dates from the 17th century.
=> haggard, hedge
hay: hay: [OE] Etymologically, hay is ‘that which is cut down’. It comes ultimately from the prehistoric Germanic verb *khauwan, source also of English hew, which was formed from the Indo-European base *kou-, *kow-. From it was derived the noun *khaujam, which has become German hau, Dutch hooi, Swedish and Danish hä, and English hay – ‘grass cut down and dried’.

Other English descendants of Germanic *khauwan ‘cut down’ are haggle [16], which originally meant ‘hack, mutilate’ and was derived from an earlier hag ‘cut’, a borrowing from Old Norse höggva ‘cut’; and hoe [14], which comes via Old French houe from Frankish *hauwa ‘cut’.
=> haggle, hew, hoe
hazard: hazard: [13] The word hazard was introduced to English as the name for a game played with dice. It was borrowed from Old French hasard, which came via Spanish azar from Arabic azzahr, earlier al-zahr ‘luck, chance’. Its associations were thus from the first with ‘uncertainty’, and its central modern sense ‘danger’ did not develop until the 16th century.
hazel: hazel: [OE] Hazel is a very ancient tree-name. It can be traced right back to Indo-European *kosolos or *koselos, which also produced French coudrier and Welsh collen. Its Germanic descendant was *khasalaz, from which come German hasel, Dutch hazel-, and Swedish and Danish hassel as well as English hazel. The earliest known use of the word to describe the colour of eyes comes in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 1592: ‘Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason, but thou hast hazel eyes’.
he: he: [OE] He comes ultimately from a prehistoric Indo-European base *ki-, *ko-, which denoted in general terms ‘this, here’ (as opposed to ‘that, there’) and occurs in a number of modern English demonstrative pronouns and adverbs, such as here and hence. The most direct use of the demonstrative is for the ‘person or thing referred to’, and so *ki- has come down directly via Germanic *khi- as the third person singular pronoun he (of which him, his, she, her, and it are all derivatives).
=> him, his, it, she
head: head: [OE] The word head can be traced back ultimately to Indo-European *kauput-, *kaupet-, which probably had connotations of ‘bowl’ (as in ‘skull’) as well as ‘head’, although which came first is not clear. From it was descended prehistoric Germanic *khaubutham, *khaubitham, which produced German haupt, Dutch hoofd, Swedish huvud, and English head.

A variant of the Indo-European ancestor, *kaput-, seems to have been responsible for the Latin word for ‘head’, caput (source of a wide range of English words, including capillary, capital, captain, and chief), and also for Sanskrit kapucchala- ‘hair at the back of the head’ and Danish hoved ‘head’. And a further related form, *keup-, produced English hive, Latin cūpa ‘barrel’, and medieval Latin cuppa (source of English cup and German kopf ‘head’).
=> capital, captain, chief, cup
health: health: [OE] Etymologically, health is the ‘state of being whole’. The word was formed in prehistoric Germanic times from the adjective *khailaz, ancestor of modern English whole. To this was added the abstract noun suffix *-itha, producing *khailitha, whence English health. The verb heal [OE] comes from the same source.
=> heal, whole
heap: heap: [OE] Heap is an ancient word, with still the odd non-Germanic relative surviving. Its immediate West Germanic ancestor was *khaupaz, which also produced Dutch hoop (the hope of English forlorn hope), and forms such as German haufen ‘heap’ and Lithuanian kaupas ‘heap’, while not in exactly the same line of descent, point to a common Indo-European source.
hear: hear: [OE] The prehistoric Germanic verb for ‘hear’ was *khauzjan, which produced German hören, Dutch hooren, Swedish höra, Danish høre, and English hear. Some etymologists have suggested links with Greek akoúein ‘hear’ (source of English acoustic), and also with Latin cavēre ‘beware’ and Russian chuvstvovat’ ‘feel, perceive’, but these have not been conclusively demonstrated.
hearse: hearse: [14] The ancestor of hearse seems to have been a word in an ancient Italic language meaning ‘wolf’ – Oscan hirpus. The salient feature of wolves being their teeth, the Romans took the word over as hirpex and used it for a ‘large rake, of the sort used for breaking up fields’. It passed via Vulgar Latin *herpica into Old French as herse, and by now had moved another semantic step further away from its original sense ‘wolf’, for, since agricultural harrows in those times were typically toothed triangular frames, the word herse was applied to a triangular frame for holding candles, as used in a church, and particularly as placed over a coffin at funeral services.

This was its meaning when English acquired it, and it only gradually developed via ‘canopy placed over a coffin’ and ‘coffin, bier’ to the modern sense ‘funeral carriage’ (first recorded in the mid-17th century).
=> rehearse
heart: heart: [OE] Heart is part of a widespread Indo- European family of words for the ‘cardiac muscle’, which all go back to the common ancestor *kerd-. From it come Greek kardíā (source of English cardiac [17]), Latin cor (whence French coeur, Italian cuor, Spanish corazón, not to mention a wide range of English descendants, including concord, cordial, courage, quarry ‘hunted animal’, and record), modern Irish croidhe, Russian serdce, and Latvian sirds.

Its Germanic off-spring was *khertōn, which produced German herz, Dutch hart, Swedish hjärta, Danish hjerte, and English heart. The only major Indo-European languages to have taken a different path are Romanian, whose inima ‘heart’ comes from Latin anima ‘soul’, and Welsh, which keeps craidd for the metaphorical sense ‘centre’, but for the bodily organ has calon, a descendant of Latin caldus ‘warm’.
=> cardiac, concord, cordial, courage, quarry, record
hearth: hearth: [OE] Etymologically, hearth seems to mean ‘burning place’. It has been suggested that its West Germanic ancestor *kherthaz, which also produced German herd and Dutch haard, may be connected with Latin cremāre ‘burn’ (source of English cremate [19]) and Lithuanian kurti ‘heat’.
=> cremate
heat: heat: [OE] From an etymological point of view, heat is simply ‘hotness’ – that is, the adjective hot with an abstract noun suffix added to it. But the addition took place a long time ago, in the prehistoric ancestor of Old English. The suffix *-īn ‘state, condition’ was tacked on to the adjective *khaitaz ‘hot’ to produce *khaitīn, which eventually became modern English heat. The verb heat is equally ancient, and was independently formed from *khiataz (het, as in ‘het up’, comes from a dialectal form of its past participle).
=> het, hot
heath: heath: [OE] Heath goes back to Indo-European *kait-, denoting ‘open, unploughed country’. Its Germanic descendant *khaithiz produced German and Dutch heide and English heath. One of the commonest plants of such habitats is the heather, and this was accordingly named in prehistoric Germanic *khaithjō, a derivative of the same base as produced *khaithiz, which in modern English has become heath ‘plant of the heather family’. (The word heather [14] itself, incidentally, does not appear to be related. It comes from a Scottish or Northern Middle English hadder or hathir, and its modern English form is due to association with heath.)
heathen: heathen: [OE] Etymologically, a heathen is ‘someone who lives on the heath’ – that is, someone who lives in a wild upcountry area, and is uncivilized and savage (the word was derived in prehistoric Germanic times from *khaithiz ‘heath’, and is also represented in German heide, Dutch heiden, and Swedish and Danish heden). Its specific use for ‘person who is not a Christian’ seems to have been directly inspired by Latin pāgānus (source of English pagan), which likewise originally meant ‘countrydweller’. (Etymologically, savages too were to begin with dwellers in ‘wild woodland’ areas, while civilized or urbane people lived in cities or towns.) The now archaic hoyden ‘high-spirited girl’ [16] was borrowed from Dutch heiden ‘heathen’.
=> heath, hoyden
heather: heather: see heath
heave: heave: [OE] Heave is part of a major family of English words that can trace their ancestry back to Indo-European *kap- ‘seize’. One of its Latin descendants was the verb capere ‘take’, which has given English capable, capacious, capstan, caption, captious, capture, case (for carrying things), cater, chase, prince, and many others.

To Germanic it gave *khabjan, from which come German heben ‘lift’ and English heave (which also originally meant ‘lift’; ‘throw’ and ‘haul’ are 16th-century developments). Haft [OE] (literally ‘something by which one seizes or holds on to something’) and heavy are derived from the same base as heave, and have may be related. Hefty [19] comes from heft ‘weight, heaviness’ [16], which was formed from heave on the analogy of such pairs as weave and weft.
=> capable, capacious, capstan, caption, captive, capture, case, cater, chase, haft, heavy, hefty, prince
heaven: heaven: [OE] The precise origins of the word heaven have never been satisfactorily explained. Could it perhaps be related in some way to Greek kamára ‘vault, covering’, and thus originally have denoted ‘sky thought of as arching over or covering the earth’ (‘sky’ is at least as ancient a meaning of heaven as ‘abode of god(s)’, although it now has an archaic air)? Are the tantalizingly similar German, Swedish, and Danish himmel and Dutch hemel related to it (going back perhaps to a common Germanic source *hibn- in which the /b/ sound, which became /v/ in English, was lost – as in e’en for even – and a suffix *-ila- was adopted rather than the *-ina- that produced English heaven), or are they completely different words? The etymological jury is still out.