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sabbath [sabbath 词源字典]: sabbath: [OE] The sabbath is etymologically the day of ‘rest’. The word comes ultimately from Hebrew shabbāth, a derivative of shābath ‘rest’. English acquired it via Greek sábbaton and Latin sabbatum. The modern use of the derived sabbatical [16] for a ‘period away from normal duties’, first recorded in the 19th century, evolved from its original application to the one year in seven when, according to ancient Jewish law, land had to be left fallow. French samedi ‘Saturday’ comes from the same source.
=> sabbatical[sabbath etymology, sabbath origin, 英语词源]
sable: sable: [14] The sable, an animal like a large weasel with valuable fur, lives in northern Europe and Asia, and its name reflects where it comes from – for it is of Slavic origin, related to Russian sóbol’. It came west with the fur trade, and was borrowed into medieval Latin as sabellum. From there it made its way into English via Old French sable.
sabotage: sabotage: [20] The etymological idea underlying sabotage is of ‘clattering along in noisy shoes’. For its ultimate ancestor is French sabot, a word of unknown origin which means ‘clog’. From it was derived saboter ‘walk along noisily in clogs’, hence (via the notion of ‘clumsiness’) ‘do work badly’, and finally ‘destroy tools, machines, etc deliberately’. This in turn formed the basis of the noun sabotage, which originally denoted the ‘destruction of machinery, etc by factory workers’, but gradually broadened out to include any deliberate disruptive destruction. English acquired it around 1910.
sabre: sabre: [17] Both the sabre and its name are of eastern European origin. The word comes from either Polish szabla or Hungarian száblya. It was westernized as sabel in German, and in the early 17th century it passed in this guise into French, where for reasons that are not altogether clear is soon evolved into sabre – source of the English word.
sac: sac: see sachet
saccharin: saccharin: [19] Medieval Latin saccharum ‘sugar’ belonged to the same word-family as the ancestor of English sugar. Its original contribution to English was the adjective saccharine ‘sugary’ [17]; and in the late 1870s the German chemist Fahlberg used it in coining the term saccharin for the new sweetening substance he had invented. English borrowed it in the mid 1880s.
=> sugar
sachet: sachet: [19] A sachet is etymologically a ‘little sack’. The word was borrowed from French sachet, a diminutive form of sac ‘bag’, which came from the same Latin source that produced English sack. Sac itself was acquired by English as a biological term in the 18th century.
=> sack
sack: sack: English has three separate words sack, one of them now a historical relic and the other two ultimately related. Sack ‘large bag’ [OE] was borrowed from Latin saccus (source also of English sac, sachet, and satchel). This in turn came from Greek sákkos ‘rough cloth used for packing’, which was of Semitic origin (Hebrew has saq meaning both ‘sack’ and ‘sackcloth’).

The colloquial sense ‘dismissal from work’ (as in get the sack) arose in the early 19th century, perhaps from the notion of a dismissed worker going away with his tools or clothing in his bag. Sack ‘plunder’ [16] came via French sac from sacco ‘bag’, the Italian descendant of Latin saccus. This was used in expressions like mettere a sacco, literally ‘put in a bag’, which denoted figuratively ‘plunder, pillage’ (no doubt inspired by the notion of ‘putting one’s loot in a bag’). Sack ‘sherry-like wine’ [16] (Sir John Falstaff’s favourite tipple) was an alteration of seck.

This was short for wine sec, a partial translation of French vin sec ‘dry wine’ (French sec came from Latin siccus ‘dry’, source of English desiccate [16]).
=> sac, sachet, satchel; desiccate, sec
sacred: sacred: [14] Sacred is one of a wide range of English words that go back to Latin sacer ‘sacred, holy’ (which itself came from the same base that produced Latin sancīre ‘consecrate’, source of English saint, sanctuary, etc). Many of them come via the derived verb sacrāre ‘consecrate’. These include consecrate [15], execrate [16], sacrament [12], and sacred itself, which was originally the past participle of the now obsolete verb sacre ‘consecrate’, a descendant via Old French sacrer of Latin sacrāre.

Amongst other relatives are sacerdotal [14] (from Latin sacerdōs ‘priest’, a derivative of the same base as sacer), sacrifice [13] (from a Latin compound meaning ‘make holy’), sacrilege [13] (from a Latin compound meaning ‘steal holy things’), sacristan and its more heavily disguised relative sexton, sacrosanct [17] (etymologically ‘consecrated with religious ceremonies’), and sacrum ‘bottom section of the spine’ [18] (short for medieval Latin os sacrum ‘holy bone’, which was a direct translation of Greek hieron ostéon, an allusion to the use of the bone in sacrificial ceremonies).
=> consecrate, execrate, sacrament, sacrifice, sacristan, saint, sanctuary, sexton
sad: sad: [OE] Originally, to feel sad was to feel that one had had ‘enough’. For the word comes ultimately from the same Indo-European base that produced English satisfy and saturate. By the time it reached English (via a prehistoric Germanic *sathaz) ‘enough’ had already become extended to ‘weary’, and the modern sense ‘unhappy’ emerged in the 14th century.

The original notion of ‘sufficiency’ has now died out in the case of sad, but it survives in the case of sated [17], an alteration (probably under the influence of satiate) of the past participle of an earlier verb sade ‘satiate’, which was derived from sad.
=> sated, satiate, satisfy, saturate
saddle: saddle: [OE] Saddle comes from a prehistoric Germanic *sathulaz, which also produced German sattel, Dutch zadel, and Swedish sadel. Etymologically it no doubt signifies something to ‘sit’ on, hailing ultimately from the Indo- European base *sed- ‘sit’, from which English gets sit.
=> sit
sadist: sadist: [19] The terms sadist and sadism commemorate the so-called Marquis de Sade (in fact he was a count), the French writer who lived between 1740 and 1815. Towards the end of the 18th century he produced several pornographic novels, whose theme of sexual gratification through (among other things) the inflicting of pain led in the late 19th century to the use of his name by psychiatrists to describe such behaviour. By the 1930s sadism had become a general term for ‘gratuitous cruelty’.
safe: safe: [13] Like save, and indeed salvage and salvation, safe comes from Latin salvus ‘uninjured’. It reached English via Old French sauf. Salvus itself went back to a prehistoric Indo-European *solwos ‘whole’, which came from the same base that produced English soldier, solemn, and solid. The noun safe ‘strongbox’ [15] was originally save, a derivative of the verb, but by the late 17th century it had, under the influence of the adjective, become safe.

The plant-name sage [14] comes via Old French sauge from Latin salvia, etymologically the ‘healing’ plant, a derivative of salvus (English acquired salvia itself in the 19th century).
=> sage, salute, salvage, salvation, salvia, save, soldier, solemn, solid
saffron: saffron: [13] Saffron brought its name with it along the spice route from the Middle East. It comes from Arabic za‘farān, a word of unknown origin, and reached English via medieval Latin safranum and Old French safran. The town of Saffron Walden in Essex is so named from its once thriving saffron-growing industry.
sag: sag: [15] There are several Scandinavian verbs that bear a strong resemblance to sag, including Swedish sacka and Danish sakke, and it seems likely that one of these was borrowed into Middle Low German as sacken ‘settle, subside’, and subsequently found its way into English as sag (whose original meaning was ‘subside’)
saga: saga: see saw
sagacious: sagacious: see seek
sage: sage: see safe
sago: sago: [16] Sago is of Malay origin. The Portuguese were responsible for introducing the Malay term sāgū to English, as sagu; the modern form sago, which became established during the 17th and 18th centuries, came via Dutch.
sail: sail: [OE] Sail has numerous relatives in the other Germanic languages, among them German and Swedish segel, Dutch zeil, and Danish sejl. These all come from a prehistoric Germanic *seglam, which some have traced back to an Indo-European *seklom. This was presumably formed from the same Indo-European base (*sek- ‘cut’) that produced English dissect, saw, segment, etc, and so sail may signify etymologically a piece of ‘cut’ cloth.
=> dissect, saw, segment