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wind [wind 词源字典]: wind: English has three distinct words wind. The noun, ‘moving air’ [OE], came from a prehistoric Germanic *windaz, which also produced German and Dutch wind and Swedish and Danish vind. This in turn went back to Indo- European *went-, whose other descendants include Latin ventus (source of English vent, ventilate, etc) and Welsh gwynt.

And *wentitself was derived from the base *we- ‘blow’, source also of Greek aétēs ‘wind’ and áēr ‘air’ (from which English gets air), Sanskrit vátas ‘wind’, and Russian vejat’ ‘blow’. The now archaic verb wind ‘blow a horn’ [16], for all that it rhymes with wind ‘wrap round’, was derived from the noun wind. Wind ‘wrap round’ [OE] originally meant ‘go in a particular direction’; ‘wrap’ did not emerge until the 14th century, via an intermediate ‘go in a circle’.

It came from a prehistoric Germanic *windon (source also of German and Dutch winden, Swedish vinda, and Danish vinde), which was formed from a variant of the base which produced English wand, wander, and wend.
=> air, vent, ventilate, weather, winnow; wand, wander, went[wind etymology, wind origin, 英语词源]
window: window: [13] A window is etymologically a ‘wind-eye’ – that is, an ‘eye’-like opening for admitting the air. The word was borrowed from Old Norse vindauga, a compound noun formed from vindr ‘wind’ and auga ‘eye’. Danish vindue is descended from the Old Norse form, which was also taken over by Irish as fuinneog.
=> eye, wind
wine: wine: [OE] Wine comes from Latin vīnum. This was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic as *wīnam, which subsequently evolved into German wein, Dutch wijn, Swedish and Danish vin, and English wine. It also gave French vin and Italian and Spanish vino, and was extensively acquired by other Indo-European languages, including Russian and Serbo-Croat vino, Polish wino, Lithuanian vynas, and Welsh gwin.

The Latin word itself came from an ancient Mediterranean source, possibly non- Indo-European, which also produced Greek oínos ‘wine’ (source of English oenology [19]), Albanian vēne ‘wine’, and Armenian gini ‘wine’. The same ancestral term also fed into the Semitic languages, giving Arabic wain, Hebrew yayin, and Assyrian īnn ‘wine’.

Latin vīnum additionally gave English vintage and vintner, and its derivative vīnea ‘vineyard, vine’ produced English vine [13].
=> oenology, vine, vintage, vintner
wing: wing: [12] Wing was borrowed from Old Norse vængir, source also of Swedish and Danish vinge and Norwegian veng. This came ultimately from the Indo-European base *we- ‘blow’, and the missing semantic link with ‘wing’ may be ‘flutter’.
winnow: winnow: [OE] Etymologically, to winnow grain is to separate it from the chaff by means of the ‘wind’. The verb was coined in the Old English period from wind. The same notion underlay Latin ventilāre ‘winnow’ (source of English ventilate), which was derived from ventus ‘wind’ (a relative of English wind).
=> wind
winsome: winsome: see wish
winter: winter: [OE] Winter is a general Germanic word (German and Dutch spell it the same, Swedish and Danish have vinter). Its prehistoric ancestor was *wentrus, but the ultimate source of this is uncertain. It could well go back to a nasalized version of the Indo-European base *wed-, *wod-, *ud- ‘wet’ (source also of English otter, water and wet), in which case winter would be etymologically the ‘wet’ season. But an alternative theory traces it back to Indo- European *wind- ‘white’ (source of Breton gwenn, Welsh gwyn – which may underlie English penguin – and Irish fionn ‘white’), in which case it would denote the ‘white’ season.
wire: wire: [OE] Wire probably goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *wi- ‘plait’. Related forms in other Germanic languages have now largely died out. The adjective wireless is first recorded in 1894 (in the term wireless telephone); its use as a noun dates from around 1903.
wise: wise: English has two distinct words wise, but they come from the same ultimate source: the Indo-European base *woid-, *weid-, *wid-. This denoted ‘see’, and hence ‘know’, and it also produced English idea, vision, and wit. From it was formed the past participial adjective *wīttos, which passed into prehistoric Germanic as *wīsaz ‘knowing things, learned’.

And this has since evolved into German weise, Dutch wijs, Swedish and Danish vis, and English wise. Wisdom [OE] and wizard are derivatives. Meanwhile, another derivative of the same prehistoric base was the Germanic noun *wīsōn, *wīsō, whose original meaning ‘appearance’ (going back to the ancestral ‘see’ of the base) had developed via ‘for, shape’ and ‘kind, sort’ to ‘way, manner’.

This produced German weise, Dutch wijze, Swedish and Danish vis (used largely in compounds and phrases), and English wise (similarly nowadays restricted mainly to compounds, such as likewise and otherwise). Guise is ultimately the same word, filtered through Old French.
=> guise, idea, vision, wit, wizard
wiseacre: wiseacre: [16] Wiseacre has no etymological connection with acres. The word’s ancestral meaning is ‘person who sees or knows things, prophet’. It was borrowed from Middle Dutch wijsseggher, which denoted ‘soothsayer’ (with no derogatory connotations). And this in turn came from Old High German wīssago, an alteration (due to the similarity of wīs ‘wise’ and sagen ‘say’) of wīzago ‘prophet’, which was derived from the prehistoric Germanic base *wīt- ‘know’ (source of English wise and wit).
wish: wish: [OE] Wish comes from a prehistoric Germanic *wunskjan, which also produced German wünschen, Swedish önska, and Danish ønske. Its ultimate ancestor is the Indo-European base *wun-, *wen-, *won-, source also of English wean, ween ‘think, suppose’ [OE] (now archaic except in the derivative overweening [14]), the win- of winsome [OE], and wont ‘accustomed’, and of German wonne ‘joy’.
=> overweening, wean, winsome, wont
wit: wit: Both the noun wit [OE] and the verb [OE] go back ultimately to the Indo-European base *woid-, *weid-, *wid-. This originally meant ‘see’, in which sense it has given English visible, vision, etc, but it developed metaphorically to ‘know’, and it is this sense that lies behind English wit. The noun to begin with denoted ‘mind, understanding, judgement, sense’ (a meaning preserved in expressions such as ‘keep one’s wits about one’ and ‘slow-witted’), and the modern sense ‘clever humorousness’ did not begin to emerge until the 16th century.

The verb has now virtually died out, except in the expression to wit. Witness is etymologically the state of ‘knowing’. Other English words that come from the same Indo-European base or its Germanic descendant include guide, history, idea, story, and twit.
=> guide, guise, history, idea, story, twit, vision, wise, witness
witch: witch: [OE] The close Germanic relatives of witch have died out, but it seems that it may be related to German weihen ‘consecrate’ and even, distantly, to English victim (etymologically ‘someone killed in a religious ritual’), so the word’s underlying signification is of a ‘priestess’. Wicked was derived from Old English wicca ‘wizard’, the masculine form of wicce, ancestor of modern English witch.
=> wicked
with: with: [OE] The ancestral meaning of with is ‘against’ (retained by its German relative wider). It goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *wi-, which denoted ‘separation’. The notion of ‘accompaniment’ is a secondary development, albeit an ancient one, and the idea of ‘instrumentality’ did not emerge until the 12th century.
wither: wither: see weather
witness: witness: [OE] Witness originally meant ‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdom’; it was simply an abstract noun formed from wit. This was extended via ‘knowledge gained by observation’ to ‘testimony’ in the Old English period, and by the beginning of the Middle English period ‘person who gives testimony’ was well established.
=> wit
wizard: wizard: [15] A wizard is etymologically a ‘wise’ man – indeed originally the word was used for ‘philosopher’ or ‘sage’, without any suggestion of magical practices. It was derived from wise. The distinction between philosophy and magic was sufficiently blurred in the Middle Ages for the sense ‘magician’ to emerge in the 16th century, and that is the one which has prevailed.
=> wise
wobble: wobble: see wave
wog: wog: see golliwog
wolf: wolf: [OE] Wolf is an ancient word, which has been traced back to Indo-European *wlqwos. This, or its variant *lukwos, also produced Greek lúkos (source of English lycanthropy ‘(delusion of) turning into a wolf’ [16]), Latin lupus (source of French loup, Italian lupo, and Spanish lobo, and probably also of English lupin [14]), Sanskrit vrkas, Russian volk, Polish wilk, Czech vlk, Serbo-Croat vuk, Lithuanian vilkas, Latvian vilks, Albanian u’lk, and Armenian gail. In prehistoric Germanic it gave *wulfaz, which has evolved into German, Dutch, and English wolf and Swedish and Danish ulv.
=> lupin, lycanthropy