英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

in [in 词源字典]: in: [OE] In is a widespread preposition amongst the Indo-European languages. Greek had en, Latin in (whence French and Italian en and Spanish in), and amongst modern languages German and Dutch have in, Swedish i, Welsh yn, and Russian v, all of which point back to an original Indo-European *en or *n. The adverb in was not originally the same word; it comes from a conflation of two Old English adverbs, inn and inne, both ultimately related to the preposition in. (An inn is etymologically a place ‘in’ which people live or stay.)
=> inn[in etymology, in origin, 英语词源]
inaugurate: inaugurate: see augur
incense: incense: English has two distinct words incense, but both come ultimately from the same source. The noun, ‘aromatic burnt substance’ [13], comes via Old French encens from late Latin incensum, a noun use of the verb incendere ‘set fire to’ (source of English incendiary [17]). This in turn was formed from a derivative of candēre ‘glow’ (source of English candle). (From encens was derived Old French censier, which passed into English via Anglo-Norman as censer [13].) Besides the literal ‘set fire to’, incendere was used figuratively for ‘enrage’, which English acquired as the verb incense [15] via Old French.
=> censer, incendiary
incest: incest: [13] Etymologically, incest is virtually the same word as unchaste. It was borrowed from Latin incestus, a noun use of an adjective formed from the negative prefix in- and castus ‘pure’ (source of English chaste). The Latin word denoted ‘unchastity’ in general, but in practice was often applied specifically to ‘sexual contact between close relatives’.
=> chaste
inch: inch: [OE] Inch and ounce both mean etymologically ‘one twelfth’, but while this ancestral sense has largely been lost sight of in the case of ounce, for inch it remains in force. The words’ common ancestor is Latin uncia, a term for a ‘twelfth part’ derived from unus ‘one’. This was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic as *ungkja, but it has not survived in any other Germanic language but English.
=> one, ounce
incident: incident: [15] An incident is literally that which ‘befalls’. In common with accident and occident, and a wide range of other English words, from cadaver to occasion, it comes ultimately from Latin cadere ‘fall’. This was combined with the prefix in- ‘on’ to produce incidere ‘fall on’, hence ‘befall, happen to’. Its present participial stem incident- passed into English either directly or via French.

The use of a word that literally means ‘fall’ to denote the concept of ‘happening’ is quite a common phenomenon. It occurs also in befall and chance, and operates in other languages than English; Welsh digwydd ‘happen’, for instance, is derived from cwyddo ‘fall’.
=> accident, cadence, case, occasion
incline: incline: [13] Latin -clīnāre (a relative of English lean, but itself only ever recorded in compounds) meant ‘bend, lean’. Add to this the prefix in- and you had inclīnāre ‘lean towards’. This was originally borrowed into English via Old French encliner as encline – a form which survived until the 17th century, when the latinized incline began to take over. The metaphorical use of the word to indicate a person’s disposition or preference dates back to Roman times.
=> lean
include: include: [15] The idea of ‘shutting in’ or ‘enclosure’ is etymologically central to include – indeed, it is virtually the same word as enclose. It was borrowed from Latin inclūdere, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and claudere ‘shut’ (source of English close). (A probable Vulgar Latin descendant of inclūdere was *inclaudere, which passed into Old French as enclore. English took over its past participle enclose as the verb enclose [14].) The metaphorical sense ‘comprise’ was already developing in classical Latin.
=> close, enclose
increase: increase: [14] The -crease element in increase (which occurs also, of course, in its antonym decrease) means ‘grow’. It comes from Latin crēscere ‘grow’ (source of English crescent), which combined with the prefix in- to produce incrēscere ‘grow in, grow on’. This passed into Old French as encreistre, which English originally took over as encres. The Latin-style spelling, with in- instead of en-, was reintroduced in the 15th century. Derived from Latin incrēscere was incrēmentum ‘growth, increase’, which gave English increment [15].
=> crescent, crew, croissant, decrease, increment
incubate: incubate: [18] Latin incubāre, the source of English incubate, meant literally ‘lie down on’. It was based on the verb cubāre ‘lie’, which also produced English concubine and cubicle. The notion of ‘lying on eggs to hatch them’ seems later to have fed back into the simple verb cubāre, which in this sense gave English couvade ‘male mimicking of child-bearing’ [19] (an anthropological term borrowed from French) and covey [14].

Another English descendant of incubāre is incubus ‘male demon that has sex with a sleeping woman’ [14], literally ‘one who lies down on another’ (its counterpart is the succubus ‘female demon that has sex with a sleeping man’ [16], literally ‘one who lies down under another’). The nasalized version of the stem of Latin cubāre gave English incumbent [16] (which etymologically means ‘resting upon as a duty’) and recumbent [17].
=> cubicle, concubine, covey, incubus, incumbent, recumbent, succubus, succumb
incunabulum: incunabulum: [19] An incunabulum is a book printed before 1501. But etymologically the word has nothing to do with books. It comes from the Latin plural noun incūnābula, which had a range of meanings, including ‘swaddling clothes’, ‘cradle’, and ‘infancy’, which point back to its original source, Latin cūnae ‘cradle’. Nineteenth-century antiquarians and bibliographers applied the term to early printed books since they represented the ‘infancy’ of book production.
incursion: incursion: see course
indefatigable: indefatigable: see fatigue
indemnity: indemnity: see damage
indent: indent: Etymologically, English has two separate words indent, although they have converged to a considerable extent over the centuries (particularly in the virtually shared derivative indentation). The one meaning ‘(make) a hole or depression’ [14] is simply a derivative of dent, which itself probably originated as a variant of dint. Indent ‘make notches in’ [14], however, owes its origin to Latin dēns ‘tooth’.

This formed the basis of an Anglo-Latin verb indentāre, which denoted the drawing up of a contract between two parties on two identical documents, which were cut along a matching line of notches or ‘teeth’ which could subsequently be rejoined to prove their authenticity. A particular use of such contracts was between master craftsmen and their trainees, who hence became known as indentured apprentices.
=> dent, dint; dentist
index: index: [16] Latin index originally meant ‘indicator’, and hence more specifically ‘forefinger’ – the finger used for pointing things out. It was based on the same stem, *dik- ‘point out’, as produced Latin dīcere ‘say’ (source of English diction, dictionary, etc). The metaphorically extended sense ‘list of contents’ had already developed in Latin before English took it over. Indicate is a parallel but apparently independent formation.
=> diction, dictionary, indicate
indicate: indicate: [17] Like index, indicate has its origins in the Latin stem *dik- ‘point out’. In this case the base form was the verbal derivative dicāre ‘proclaim’ (ultimate ancestor also of English abdicate [16], dedicate [15] and predicate [16]), which with the addition of the prefix inproduced indicāre ‘show’ – which English adopted as indicate.

First cousin of Latin dicāre was dīcere ‘say’ (source of English diction, dictionary, etc). Addition of the prefix in- to this produced indīcere ‘proclaim’, which formed the basis of Vulgar Latin *indictāre ‘declare, dictate’. This has given English two separate verbs: via Old French enditier the now archaic indite [14]; and via Anglo-Norman enditer, with subsequent latinization of the spelling, indict [14].
=> abdicate, dedicate, predicate
indifferent: indifferent: see different
indigenous: indigenous: [17] The -gen- of indigenous comes from the same ultimate source – Indo-European *gen- – as produced English gender, generate, genital, etc. It denoted ‘produce’. The addition of the Latin prefix indi- ‘in, within’, earlier indu- (a strengthened form of in- originally formed with de ‘down’, which also appears in indigent ‘poor’ [14] and industry) produced indigena ‘born or produced in a particular place, native’, which English adopted and adapted as indigenous.
=> gender, general, generate, genital, kind
indignant: indignant: see dignity