quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- shamble[shamble 词源字典]
- shamble: [17] Shamble ‘slouch’ and the noun shambles [15] are probably related. The latter originally meant ‘meat market’. It arose out of the plural of the now obsolete shamble ‘meat stall, meat table’, which represented a semantic specialization of Old English sceamul ‘stool, table’. This was descended from prehistoric Germanic *skamul (source also of German schemel ‘stool’), which in turn was borrowed from Latin scamellum, a diminutive form of scamnum ‘bench’.
In the 16th century, the signification of shambles moved on to ‘slaughterhouse’, and hence metaphorically to any ‘scene of bloodshed and slaughter’, but the milder modern sense ‘scene of disorder or ruin’ did not emerge until as recently as the early 20th century. The verb shamble is thought to come from the now obsolete expression shamble legs ‘ungainly legs’, an allusion to the rickety legs of the stalls or tables in meat markets.
[shamble etymology, shamble origin, 英语词源] - shame
- shame: [OE] Shame is a general Germanic term, with relatives in German scham, Dutch schaam, and Swedish and Danish skam. Their common ancestor is a prehistoric *skamō, a word of unknown origin. Sham [17] probably originated in a northern English pronunciation of shame. The compound shamefaced [16] has no etymological connection with face. It is an alteration of an earlier shamefast, whose second element is the same word as fast ‘firm’, and its underlying meaning is ‘held firm by shame’.
=> sham - shampoo
- shampoo: [18] Hindi chāmpō means ‘press!’ It is an imperative form of chāmpnā ‘press’, or more specifically ‘knead the muscles’. The English in India took the word up in the 18th century as a verb meaning ‘massage’, but by the middle of the 19th century we find it being used in the accepted modern sense, ‘wash the hair’. The linking factor was presumably the vigorous massaging action typically applied to the scalp when shampooing the hair.
- shank
- shank: [OE] Shank originally meant ‘leg’, or more specifically ‘shin’ (Edward I of England was nicknamed ‘Longshanks’ on account of his long legs). The word goes back to a prehistoric West Germanic *skangkan, which also produced Dutch schenk ‘leg-bone’ and is closely related to German schinken ‘ham’. Its ultimate origins are not known, although it has been suggested that it arose from the notion of ‘crookedness’ or ‘lameness’ (in which case German hinken ‘limp’ may be related). The main modern meaning of shank, ‘stem, shaft’, emerged in the 16th century.
- shanty
- shanty: English has two distinct words shanty. The older, ‘shack’ [19], originated in America, and the fact that to begin with it was mainly used for the houses of Irish immigrants suggests that it may have come from Irish sean tig ‘old house’. Shanty ‘sailor’s song’ [19] probably comes from chantez, the imperative plural of French chanter ‘sing’.
=> canto, chant - shape
- shape: [OE] Shape goes back ultimately to the prehistoric Germanic base *skap- ‘form, create’, which also produced German schaffen and Swedish skapa ‘create, make’. ‘Create’ seems to have been a secondary meaning of the base, evolving out of an earlier ‘chop or dig out’, which probably gave rise to English scoop.
=> scoop - share
- share: Share ‘plough-blade’ [OE] and share ‘portion’ [14] are distinct words, but they are ultimately related. The former came from the Germanic base *skar-, *sker- ‘cut’, which also produced English score, shear, short, etc. Its German relative is schar ‘ploughshare’. Share ‘portion’ appears to be a survival of Old English scearu.
This is only recorded in the senses ‘groin’ and ‘tonsure’, but they share a meaning element (‘dividing’ in the case of the groin, the ‘forking’ of the body, and ‘cutting’ in the case of tonsure) that leads back to Germanic *skar-, *sker-, and suggests that share ‘portion’ denotes etymologically something ‘cut’ up or divided between people.
=> score, sharp, shear, shirt, short, skirt - shark
- shark: [16] The origins of the word shark are obscure. It appears to have been introduced to English in the late 1560s by members of Sir John Hawkins’ expedition (a ballad of 1569 recorded ‘There is no proper name for [the fish] that I know, but that certain men of Captain Hawkins’s doth call it a shark’), but it is not known where they got it from. A resemblance to Austrian dialect schirk ‘sturgeon’ has been noted. Also not clear is whether shark ‘swindler’ (first recorded in the 18th century) is the same word; an alternative possibility is that it came from German schurke ‘scoundrel’.
- sharp
- sharp: [OE] Sharp, together with its close relatives German scharf, Dutch scherp, and Swedish and Danish skarp, goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *skarpaz. This was probably descended from an extension of the Indo-European base *sker- ‘cut’ (source of English score, share, shear, etc). Welsh has borrowed sharp as siarp.
=> shear - shatter
- shatter: see scatter
- shave
- shave: see scab
- shawl
- shawl: [17] The shawl was originally an Oriental garment – an oblong strip of cloth worn variously over the shoulders, round the waist, or as a turban, and supposedly woven from the hair of a species of Tibetan goat. Versions of it did not begin to be worn in the West until the mid- 18th century. Its name comes via Urdu from Persian shāl, which may be derived from Shāliāt, an Indian town.
- she
- she: [12] The Old English word for ‘she’ was hēo. As this evolved during the late Old English period, its main pronunciation stress shifted from the e to the o. The o gradually changed to an e sound, while the original e became transmuted into a y sound, which eventually merged with the h to form sh. The original h survives in her.
=> he, her, it - shear
- shear: [OE] Shear is the principal English descendant of the Indo-European base *sker- ‘cut’, which has also produced English score, share, shirt, short, and skirt, and probably sharp and shore as well. A variant of the base without the s is responsible for curt and curtail. The immediate source of shear itself is prehistoric Germanic *skeran, which also evolved into German and Dutch scheren, Swedish skära, and Danish skjære.
The verb sheer ‘swerve’ [17] probably originated as a variant of shear, but the adjective sheer [16] is an entirely different word. It probably represents a survival of Old English scīr ‘bright, shining’, which came ultimately from the Germanic base *ski-, source also of English shimmer and shine.
=> curt, curtail, score, share, sheer, shirt, short, skirt - sheath
- sheath: [OE] A sheath is probably etymologically a ‘split stick’. The word comes from a prehistoric Germanic *skaithiz, which also produced German scheide, Dutch schede, and Danish skede. This seems to have been derived from the base *skaith ‘divide, split’ (source also of English shed ‘give off, drop’ and ski), in which case the notion underlying it would have been of a stick split open so that a sword blade could be inserted into it.
=> shed, ski - shed
- shed: English has two distinct words shed. The verb [OE] originally meant ‘divide, separate, split’ (a 14th-century religious poem paraphrased Genesis with ‘the sun to shed the day from the night’), and the modern range of senses, ‘give off, drop’, did not begin to emerge until the Middle English period. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *skaithan, which also produced German and Dutch scheiden ‘separate’.
This was derived from a base *skaith- ‘divide, split’, source also of English ski and probably sheath. Shed ‘hut’ [15] may be an alteration of shade (but the shed of watershed is of course a noun use of the verb shed).
=> sheath, ski; shade - sheen
- sheen: [OE] Despite its similarity in form and meaning, sheen has no etymological connection with shine. It was originally an adjective, meaning ‘beautiful, bright’. Like its relatives, German schön and Dutch schoon, it goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *skauniz, which was derived from the base *skau- ‘see, look’ (source also of English scavenger and show). It was not used as a noun until the early 17th century (it is first recorded in Shakespeare).
=> scavenger, scone, show - sheep
- sheep: [OE] Sheep is a West Germanic word, with relatives in German schaf and Dutch schaap. It is not known where it came from, although it has been speculated that it may be related to German schaffen ‘make, create’ (and hence to English shape), and that its underlying meaning is hence ‘creature’. The derivative sheepish [12] originally meant simply ‘sheeplike’. It had a variety of metaphorical applications in Middle English, including ‘silly’ and ‘fearful’, but the modern ‘shy’ did not emerge until the late 17th century. Shepherd is of course based on sheep.
- sheer
- sheer: see shear
- sheet
- sheet: Sheet ‘cloth’ [OE] and sheet ‘rope attached to a sail’ [OE] are distinct words, although they have a common ancestor. This was the Germanic base *skaut-, *skut- ‘project’, which also produced English scot-free, scuttle ‘sink a ship’, shoot, shot, shout, shut, and skit. This produced two Old English nouns, scēte ‘cloth’ and scēata ‘sail-rope’, which have formally coalesced in modern English as sheet, but retained their distinctive meanings. (Sheet ‘cloth’ was not used specifically for ‘bed sheet’ until the 13th century.)
=> scot-free, scuttle, shoot, shot, shout, shut, skit