英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

scarper [scarper 词源字典]: scarper: [19] Scarper entered English in the mid- 19th century by way of the underworld slang of criminals, who probably got it from Italian scappare ‘get away’ (a relative of English escape). It remained a subcultural vocabulary item until the early years of the 20th century, and its rise in prominence then may have been partly due to the coincidental Cockney rhyming slang use of Scapa Flow (the name of a naval anchorage in the Orkney Islands) for ‘go’. Indeed, from the 1930s onwards scarper has often been spelled scarpa or even scapa.
[scarper etymology, scarper origin, 英语词源]
scathe: scathe: [12] Scathe is now encountered virtually only in the negative form unscathed (first recorded in the 14th century), but originally it was a verb in its own right, meaning ‘harm’. It was borrowed from Old Norse skatha, which was descended from a prehistoric Germanic *skathōjan (source also of German and Dutch schaden ‘harm’). This was formed from a base *skath-, which has links with Irish scathaim ‘mutilate, lame’ and Greek askēthés ‘unhurt’.
scatter: scatter: [13] Scatter originally meant ‘squander’, and appears to have started life as an alteration of shatter. It first appears in northern and Scottish texts, and so the change from /sh/ to /sk/ is probably due to Norse influence. The origins of shatter [12] itself are not known.
=> shatter
scavenger: scavenger: [15] A scavenger was originally a scavager – the extra n is the same as that intruded into messenger, passenger, etc. This was acquired from Anglo-Norman scawager, and it started life as a term for an official whose job was to collect taxes levied on foreign merchants. Etymologically it denoted ‘inspector’, for it was derived from the verb escauwer ‘inspect’, which was borrowed from Flemish scauwen ‘look at’, a relative of English show.

By the 16th century the scavenger had begun to come down in the world, first to a ‘street-cleaner’ and finally to ‘one who gathers or lives on what others have thrown away’. The verb scavenge was derived from it in the 17th century.
=> show
scene: scene: [16] Greek skēné originally meant ‘tent’ (it was related to skiá ‘shadow’, a descendant of the same Indo-European base that produced English shimmer and shine, and so etymologically denoted ‘something that gives shade’). Such tents or booths were used for presenting plays, and eventually the word skēné came to denote the backdrop against which drama is performed.

It passed into English via Latin scaena. The Italian version of the word, scena (itself borrowed into English in the 19th century), has the derivative scenario, which has been acquired by English on two separate occasions: first as scenery [18] and later as scenario [19].
=> scenario, shimmer, shine
scent: scent: [14] Scent comes ultimately from the same source that gave English sensation, sense, sentient, and sentiment – namely, Latin sentīre ‘feel, perceive’. It arrived via Old French sentir, and at first was sent in English (‘Fishes lurking among the stones [the dogs] seek out with their sent’, James Dalrymple, Leslie’s history of Scotland 1596). The modern sc- spelling did not begin to emerge until the 17th century. It is not known what the reason for it was, although it may have been a resolution of a possible confusion with the past form of send.
=> sensation, sense, sentient, sentiment
sceptic: sceptic: [16] The Greek verb sképtesthai meant ‘examine, consider’ (it was descended from a base *skep- which was related to *skop-, source of English scope, and may have been a reversed version of *spek-, from which English gets spectator, speculate, etc). From it was derived the adjective skeptikós, which was applied to various schools of philosophy (particularly that of Pyrrho of Elis) which stressed the need for careful examination of a proposition, starting from an attitude of doubt, before accepting it.

The word passed via Latin scepticus and French sceptique into English as sceptic, by which time it had acquired broader connotations of ‘initial doubt’.
=> scope
sceptre: sceptre: see shaft
schedule: schedule: [14] Late Latin scedula meant ‘small piece of paper’. It was a diminutive form of Latin sceda ‘papyrus leaf, piece of paper, page’, itself a borrowing from Greek skhedē. By the time it reached English via Old French cedule it had moved on semantically to ‘small piece of paper with writing on it, used as a ticket or label’; and this subsequently developed through ‘supplementary sheet giving a summary, list of additional points, etc’ to any ‘list giving details of what has been arranged’.

Until around 1800 the word was pronounced /sed-/; but then in Britain, apparently under French influence, it changed to /shed-/, while Americans reverted to the original Greek with /sked-/.
scheme: scheme: [16] Greek skhéma meant ‘form, figure’. Latin took it over as schēma and used it as the equivalent of figure in a range of applications, such as ‘figure of speech’ and ‘diagram’, many of which were originally taken over by English (‘In the text, by a very elegant scheme of speech he does … once more set them at liberty’, John Tillotson, Sermons 1684). The modern sense ‘plan’, which presumably developed out of ‘diagram’, began to emerge in the mid 17th century.
scherzo: scherzo: see scorn
schism: schism: [14] The Greek verb skhízein meant ‘split’ (it has given English schizophrenia, and a common source lies behind English schist [18], etymologically a ‘split rock’, and shit). From it was derived the noun skhísma, literally ‘split, division’, which in the Greek translation of the New Testament was applied to dissensions or discords between factions in the Church. English acquired it via late Latin schisma and Old French scisme or sisme.
=> concise, decide, schist, schizophrenia, scissors, shit
schizophrenia: schizophrenia: [20] Schizophrenia means literally ‘split mind’. It is a Latinized version of German schizophrenie, coined in 1910 by E Bleuler from Greek skhízein ‘split’ (source of English schism and schist) and phrén ‘mind’ (source of English frantic and phrenology).
=> frantic, phrenology, schism
schlemiel: schlemiel: see shemozzle
schlep: schlep: see shemozzle
schlock: schlock: see shemozzle
schmaltz: schmaltz: see enamel
schmooze: schmooze: [19] To ‘schmooze’ is to chat or gossip. The word came into colloquial American English towards the end of the 19th century from Yiddish shmuesn ‘to talk, chat’, which in turn was based on Hebrew shemū’ah ‘rumour’.
schmuck: schmuck: see shemozzle
school: school: School for teaching [OE] and school of fish [14] are different words. The former was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic from medieval Latin scōla, and has since evolved into German schule, Dutch school, Swedish skola, and Danish skole, as well as English school. The medieval Latin word itself goes back via classical Latin schola to Greek skholé.

This originally denoted ‘leisure’, and only gradually developed through ‘leisure used for intellectual argument or education’ and ‘lecture’ to ‘school’ (in the sense ‘educational assembly’) and finally ‘school’ the building. The Latin word has spread throughout Europe, not just in the Romance languages (French école, Italian scuola, Spanish escuela), but also into Welsh ysgol, Irish scoil, Latvian skuola, Russian shkola, Polish szkola, etc.

Derivatives of the Latin word in English include scholar [14] and scholastic [16]. School of fish was borrowed from Middle Dutch schōle ‘troop, group’. This went back to a prehistoric West Germanic *skulo, which may have been derived from the base *skal-, *skel-, *skul- ‘split, divide’ (source also of English scale, scalp, shell, etc); if so, it would mean etymologically a ‘division’.
=> scholar, scholastic; shoal