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intransigent [intransigent 词源字典]: intransigent: [19] In the 18th century there was an extreme leftist political party in Spain which, because of its unwillingness ever to compromise, was known as los intransigentes. The name was formed with the negative prefix in- from transigentes, the present participle of Spanish transigir ‘compromise’. This was a descendant of Latin transigere, literally ‘drive through’, hence ‘come to an understanding, accomplish’ (source of English transact), a compound verb formed from trans- ‘through’ and agere ‘drive’ (from which English gets action, agent, etc.) French took the Spanish word over as a general adjective meaning ‘uncompromising’, and English acquired it in the early 1880s.
=> act, action, agent, transact[intransigent etymology, intransigent origin, 英语词源]
intrepid: intrepid: [17] The -trepid of intrepid represents Latin trepidus ‘alarmed’ (source also of English trepidation [17]), which goes back to an Indo- European source in which the notion of ‘fear’ seems to be linked with or derived from that of ‘scurrying away’. Addition of the negative prefix in- produced intrepidus ‘undaunted’, which reached English partly via French intrépide.
=> trepidation
intricate: intricate: see trick
intrinsic: intrinsic: [15] The Latin adverb intrinsecus meant ‘on the inside’. It was formed from *intrim ‘inward’, an unrecorded derivative of the adverb intrā ‘within’, and secus ‘alongside’ (a relative of English second, sect, sequel, etc). In the post-classical period it came to be used as an adjective, meaning ‘inward’, and it passed into Old French as intrinseque ‘inner, internal’.

This general concrete sense accompanied the word into English, but it now survives only as an anatomical term, meaning ‘situated within a body part’. The abstract sense ‘inherent’, now the adjective’s main meaning, developed in the 17th century. The derivation of the antonym extrinsic [16] is precisely parallel, with Latin extrā ‘outside’ taking the place of intrā.
=> extrinsic, second, sect, sequel
introduce: introduce: [16] Introduce means etymologically ‘lead inside’. It was borrowed from Latin intrōdūcere ‘lead in’, a compound verb formed from the prefix intrō- ‘in, inside’ and dūcere ‘lead’ (source of English duct, duke, educate, produce, etc). Of its main secondary meanings, ‘use for the first time, originate’ emerged in Latin but ‘make known personally to others’ seems to have been a later development.
=> duct, duke, educate, produce
intrude: intrude: see abstruse
inundate: inundate: see undulate
invalid: invalid: see valid
inveigh: inveigh: [15] Inveigh originally meant ‘carry in, introduce’ (‘In them are two colours quarterly put: the one into the other, and so one colour is inveighed into another’, Book of Saint Albans 1486). Its second syllable comes from Latin vehere ‘carry’ (source of English vector, vehicle, and vex). Invehere meant simply ‘carry in’, but its passive infinitive form invehī denoted ‘be carried into’, ‘go into’, and hence ‘attack (physically or verbally)’. This latter sense was imported into English inveigh in the early 16th century, and into the derivative invective [15].
=> invective, vehicle, vex
inveigle: inveigle: [15] The French verb aveugler means ‘blind’ (it is a derivative of the adjective aveugle ‘blind’, whose probable source was the medieval Latin phrase ab oculīs ‘without eyes’). It passed into Anglo-Norman, with alteration of the prefix, as envegler, and English acquired this originally in the metaphorical sense ‘deceive’ – which in the 16th century developed to ‘entice, seduce, persuade’.
invent: invent: [15] Invent originally meant ‘find’ (‘Since that Eve was procreated out of Adam’s side, could not such newels [novelties] in this land be invented’, wrote the anonymous author of a 15th-century song). It was based on invent-, the past participial stem of Latin invenīre ‘come upon, find’, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- ‘on’ and venīre ‘come’.

The sense ‘devise’, which developed via ‘discover’, actually existed in the Latin verb, but English did not take it on board until the 16th century. The derivative inventory [16] was borrowed from medieval Latin inventōrium ‘list’, an alteration of late Latin inventārium, which originally meant a ‘finding out’, hence an ‘enumeration’.
=> adventure, inventory
invert: invert: see verse
invest: invest: [16] The etymological notion underlying invest is of ‘putting on clothes’. It comes via Old French investir from Latin investīre, a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and vestis ‘clothes’ (source of English vest, vestment, travesty, etc). It retained that original literal sense ‘clothe’ in English for several centuries, but now it survives only in its metaphorical descendant ‘instal in an office’ (as originally performed by clothing in special garments).

Its financial sense, first recorded in English in the early 17th century, is thought to have originated in Italian investire from the idea of dressing one’s capital up in different clothes by putting it into a particular business, stock, etc.
=> travesty, vest, vestment
investigate: investigate: [16] To investigate something is etymologically to look for traces, or ‘vestiges’, of it. The word comes from Latin investīgāre ‘search into’, a compound verb based on vestīgāre ‘track, trace’. This in turn was a derivative of vestīgium ‘footprint’, hence ‘track, trace’ (source of English vestige).
=> vestige
invidious: invidious: see envy
invigorate: invigorate: see vigour
invincible: invincible: see vanquish
invite: invite: [16] Invite comes from Latin invitāre, probably by way of French inviter, but there our certain knowledge of its ancestry ends; for the Latin verb is something of a mystery word. No one is too sure where the element -vitāre comes from. One suggestion is that it is related to Greek hiesthai ‘be desirous of’.
=> vie
invoice: invoice: see envoy
invoke: invoke: see vocation