英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

over [over 词源字典]: over: [OE] Etymologically, over denotes ‘more up, upper’. It originated as an Indo-European comparative form derived from the base *upó ‘under’, which gave rise to English up. This became prehistoric Germanic *uberi, which has diversified into German über, Swedish öfver, and Dutch, Danish, and English over. A derivative of the same base forms the second syllable of English above, while amongst over’s more surprising relatives are eaves and evil.
=> above, eaves, evil, up[over etymology, over origin, 英语词源]
overlap: overlap: see lap
overweening: overweening: see wish
ovulate: ovulate: see ovary
owe: owe: [OE] Owe goes back to a prehistoric Indo- European base *oik-, *ik- denoting ‘possession’. Its Germanic descendant *aig- produced a range of ‘possession’-verbs, none of which now survives except Swedish äga, Danish eie, and English owe. In the Old English period this meant ‘possess’, but that sense was gradually taken over by the related own, and owe developed in the 12th century to ‘have to repay’. A more general notion of ‘obligation’ also emerged, which is now restricted to ought, originally the past tense of owe.
=> ought, own
owl: owl: [OE] Owl has several relatives in the other modern Germanic languages (German eule, Dutch uil, Swedish uggla), which point back to a prehistoric source *uwwalōn, *uwwilōn. Like most owl-names, such as Latin ulula and the possibly related German uhu, this no doubt originated as an imitation of the owl’s call.
own: own: [OE] The adjective own originated as the past participle of *aigan, the prehistoric Germanic ancestor of English owe. Its original form was *aiganaz, which has produced German and Dutch eigen and Swedish and Danish egen as well as English own. The verb own is a derivative of the adjective.
=> owe
ox: ox: [OE] Ox is an ancient word, traceable back to a prehistoric Indo-European *uksín-. This also produced Welsh ych ‘bull’, Irish oss ‘stag’, and Sanskrit ukshán ‘bull’, and it has been speculated that there may be some connection with Sanskrit uks- ‘emit semen’ and Greek hugrós ‘moist’, as if *uksín- denoted etymologically ‘male animal’.

If this was so, the ‘seed-bearing’ function had clearly been lost sight of by the time it had evolved to Germanic *okhson, which was reserved for a ‘castrated bull’. Ox’s modern Germanic relatives are German ochse (taken over by English in the compound aurochs ‘extinct wild ox’ [18], which etymologically means ‘original or primeval ox’), Dutch os, Swedish oxe, and Danish okse.
=> aurochs
oxygen: oxygen: [18] Etymologically, oxygen means ‘acid-former’. The word was coined in French in the late 1780s as oxygène, based on Greek oxús ‘sharp, acid’ (a descendant of the same Indo- European base, *ak- ‘be pointed’, as produced English acid, acute, etc) and the Greek suffixgenes, denoting ‘formation, creation’ (a descendant of the Indo-European base *gen- ‘produce’, which has given English a vast range of words, from gene to genocide).
=> acid, acute, eager, gene, general, generate
oyster: oyster: [14] The Greek word for ‘oyster’ was óstreon – etymologically an allusion to its shell. It came from a prehistoric Indo-European base *ost- denoting ‘bone’, which also produced Greek ostéon ‘bone’ (source of the English prefix osteo-), ostakós ‘crustacean’, and óstrakon ‘shell, piece of broken pottery’ (source of English ostracism). Óstreon passed into Latin as ostrea, and from there came by way of Old French oistre into English as oyster.
=> osteo
oz: oz: see ounce
ozone: ozone: see odour
o: interjection of fear, surprise, admiration, etc.; see oh.
O: blood type, 1926, originally "zero," denoting absence of A and B agglutinogens.
O': as a prefix in Irish names, from Irish ó, ua (Old Irish au) "descendant."
o'clock (adj.): c. 1720, abbreviation of of the clock (1640s), from Middle English of the clokke (late 14c.). Use of clock hand positions to describe vector directions or angles is from late 18c.
o'er: poetic contraction of over.
O.D.: abbreviation of overdose, attested from 1960.
oaf (n.): 1620s, auf, oph (modern form from 1630s), "a changeling; a foolish child left by the fairies" [Johnson], from a Scandinavian source such as Norwegian alfr "silly person," in Old Norse "elf" (see elf). Hence, "a misbegotten, deformed idiot." Until recently, some dictionaries still gave the plural as oaves.
oafish (adj.): 1610s, from oaf + -ish. Related: Oafishly; oafishness.