quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- treason[treason 词源字典]
- treason: [13] Treason and tradition are doublets – they have a common source. This was Latin trāditiō, a derivative of trādere ‘hand over, deliver’ (source also of English traitor). The notion of ‘handing something on to someone else’ lies behind tradition, but treason (acquired via Anglo-Norman treisoun) gets its meaning from the metaphorically extended Latin sense ‘hand over treacherously, betray’.
=> betray, tradition, traitor[treason etymology, treason origin, 英语词源] - treasure
- treasure: [12] Treasure comes ultimately from Greek thēsaurós ‘treasure’, a word of unknown origin. This was borrowed into Latin as thēsaurus (acquired directly by English as thesaurus [19] with the metaphorical sense ‘treasury of knowledge, words, etc’), and it made its way into English via Vulgar Latin *tresaurus and Old French tresor.
=> thesaurus - treat
- treat: [13] Treat comes ultimately from Latin tractāre, a derivative of tractus (source of English contract, tractor, etc), the past participle of trahere ‘pull’. Originally tractāre meant ‘drag’, but it branched out metaphorically to ‘handle, deal with, discuss’, and it was in these senses that it reached English via Anglo-Norman treter. The notion of ‘dealing with something by discussion’ also underlies treatise [14] and treaty [14], which come from the same ultimate source.
=> contract, tractor, treatise, treaty - treble
- treble: [14] Treble and triple [15] come from the same ultimate source: Latin triplus ‘threefold’. This in turn was borrowed from Greek triplous, a compound adjective formed from tri- ‘three’ and the base *pl- ‘fold’ (which lies behind English ply and is related to English fold). Triplus passed into Old French, where it split into two: treble and triple. Both were taken over into English (the former has now died out in French). The application of treble to the highest part in music, equivalent to soprano, which dates from the 14th century, probably comes from the notion of its being the ‘third’ part, above bass and alto.
=> fold, ply, three, triple - tree
- tree: [OE] Tree is part of an ancient and widespread family of ‘tree’-words that goes back ultimately to Indo-European *deru, *doru-. This appears originally to have designated specifically the ‘oak’, rather than ‘tree’ in general, an application retained by some of its descendants: Greek drūs, for instance (source of English dryad [14]), and Welsh derwen (a possible relative of English druid). From it came Germanic *trewam, which has evolved into Swedish träd, Danish træ, and English tree. Other English words from the same source include tray [OE] (etymologically a ‘wooden’ vessel), trough, and possibly tar.
=> druid, dryad, tar, tray, trough - trek
- trek: see track
- trellis
- trellis: see three
- tremble
- tremble: [14] Tremble goes back ultimately to a prehistoric base *trem- ‘shake’, which probably has connections with English terrify, terror, etc. Amongst the Latin descendants of this base were tremor ‘shaking’ (source of English tremor [14]), tremere ‘tremble’ (source of English tremendous [17]), and tremulus ‘shaking’ (source of English tremolo [19] and tremulous [17]). The last of these formed the basis of a Vulgar Latin verb *tremulāre, which passed into English via Old French trembler as tremble.
=> terrify, terror, tremendous, tremor, tremulous - trench
- trench: [14] A trench is etymologically something ‘cut’ or ‘sliced’. The word was borrowed from Old French trenche ‘slice, cutting, ditch’, a derivative of trenchier ‘cut’ (from which English gets trenchant [14]). And this in turn went back to Latin truncāre ‘cut, mutilate’ (source of English truncate [15]), a derivative of truncus ‘tree-trunk, torso’ (source of English trunk) – the semantic link being the ‘cutting’ of branches from a tree or of limbs from a body.
The sense ‘ditch’ for trench comes of course from the notion of ‘cutting’ a long narrow hole in the ground (a similar inspiration underlies cutting ‘excavation for a railway, road, etc’). Trencher ‘platter’ [14] came from the Anglo-Norman derivative trenchour, and originally denoted both a board for ‘cutting’ food up on and a ‘slice’ of bread used as a plate.
=> trenchant, trencher, truncate, trunk - trend
- trend: [OE] The etymological notion underlying trend is of ‘circularity’ or ‘roundness’. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic base *trend-, *trund-, which also produced Dutch trent ‘circumference’, Swedish trind ‘round’, and English trundle [16], and it was originally used in the sense ‘revolve, roll’. This gradually evolved via ‘turn’ to, in the 16th century, ‘turn in a particular direction, take a particular course’. The first record of the derivative trendy dates from 1962.
=> trundle - trepidation
- trepidation: see intrepid
- trespass
- trespass: [13] To trespass is etymologically to ‘pass across’ something. The word was acquired from Old French trespasser, a descendant of medieval Latin trānspassāre. This was a compound verb formed from the Latin prefix trāns- ‘across’ and Vulgar Latin *passāre ‘pass’.
=> pass - trews
- trews: see trousers
- tribe
- tribe: [13] Tribe comes via Old French tribu from Latin tribus ‘division of the Roman people’. This was probably derived from the base *tri- ‘three’, and denoted etymologically the ‘three original tribes of Rome’ – the Tities, the Ramnes, and the Luceres. The ‘head of a tribe’ was known as a tribūnus, whence English tribune [14]; and the verb for ‘give out amongst the tribes’ was tribuere, source of English contribute [16], distribute [15], retribution [14], and tribute [14].
=> contribute, distribute, retribution, three, tribune, tribute - tribulation
- tribulation: [13] Latin trībulum denoted an agricultural implement consisting of a wooden board with sharp stones or metal teeth underneath, used for threshing grain (it was derived from the base *trī-, a variant of *ter- ‘rub’, which also produced English attrition, contrition, detriment, detritus, diatribe, tribadism ‘lesbianism’ [19], and trite).
From this was derived the verb trībulāre ‘press’, which was used by Christian writers for ‘oppress, afflict’. And this sense provoked the derivative trībulātiō ‘affliction’, which passed into English via Old French tribulation.
=> attrition, contrition, detriment, detritus, diatribe, throw, tribadism, trite - trick
- trick: [15] Trick comes from Old French trique, a variant of triche, which was derived from the verb trichier ‘cheat’ (source of English treachery). And this in turn probably came from Latin trīcarī ‘make difficulties, play tricks’ (source also of English extricate [17] and intricate [15]), a derivative of trīcae ‘difficulties, tricks’, whose origins are unknown. Tricky dates from the 18th century, its use for ‘difficult’ from the end of the 19th century.
=> extricate, intricate, treachery - trident
- trident: see tooth
- trifle
- trifle: [13] Trifle was acquired from Old French truffle, a derivative of truffe ‘trickery, deceit’ (it is not known where this came from; it has no connection with English truffle, which may come ultimately from the same source as tuber). The first record of its application to a ‘sweet dessert confection’ dates from the end of the 16th century.
- trilby
- trilby: [19] The word trilby commemorates the name of Trilby O’Ferrall, the eponymous heroine of George du Maurier’s novel Trilby 1894. She was an artist’s model in Paris who fell under the spell of Svengali. In the stage version of the book the character Trilby wore a soft felt hat with an indented top, and the style soon became fashionable. The novel also dwells on the erotic qualities of Trilby’s feet, and for a while in the early 20th century trilbies was used as a slang term for ‘feet’.
- trim
- trim: [16] The origins of trim are uncertain, but it may come from an unrecorded Middle English verb *trimmen ‘arrange’, a descendant of Old English trymman or trymian ‘make stronger or firmer’