quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- danger[danger 词源字典]
- danger: [13] Etymologically, danger is a parallel formation to dominion. It comes ultimately from Vulgar Latin *domniārium ‘power or sway of a lord, dominion, jurisdiction’, a derivative of Latin dominus ‘lord, master’. English acquired the word via Old French dangier and Anglo- Norman daunger, retaining the word’s original sense until the 17th century (‘You stand within his [Shylock’s] danger, do you not?’ says Portia to Antonio in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice).
But things had been happening to its meaning in Old French, particularly in the phrase estre en dangier ‘be in danger’. The notions of being in someone’s danger (that is, ‘in his power, at his mercy’) and of being in danger of something (that is, ‘liable to something unpleasant, such as loss or punishment’ – a sense preserved in the 1611 translation of the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment’, Matthew 5:22) led directly to the sense ‘peril’, acquired by English in the 14th century.
=> dame, dome, dominate, dominion, dungeon[danger etymology, danger origin, 英语词源] - Alamo
- nickname of Franciscan Mission San Antonio de Valeroin (begun 1718, dissolved 1793) in San Antonio, Texas; American Spanish, literally "poplar" (in New Spain, also "cottonwood"), from alno "the black poplar," from Latin alnus "alder" (see alder).
Perhaps so called in reference to trees growing nearby (compare Alamogordo, New Mexico, literally "big poplar," and Spanish alameda "a public walk with a row of trees on each side"); but the popular name seems to date from the period 1803-13, when the old mission was the base for a Spanish cavalry company from the Mexican town of Alamo de Parras in Nueva Vizcaya. - dahlia (n.)
- 1804, named 1791 by Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles for Anders Dahl (1751-1789), Swedish botanist and pupil of Linnaeus, who discovered it in Mexico in 1788. The likelihood that a true blue variety of the flower never could be cultivated was first proposed by French-Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, and noted in English by 1835; hence blue dahlia, figurative expression for "something impossible or unattainable" (1866).
- knot (n.)
- Old English cnotta "intertwining of ropes, cords, etc.," from Proto-Germanic *knuttan- (cognates: Low German knütte, Old Frisian knotta "knot," Dutch knot, Old High German knoto, German Knoten, perhaps also Old Norse knutr "knot, knob"). Figurative sense of "difficult problem" was in Old English (compare Gordian knot). Symbolic of the bond of wedlock, early 13c. As an ornament of dress, first attested c. 1400. Meaning "thickened part or protuberance on tissue of a plant" is from late 14c.
The nautical unit of measure of speed (1630s) is from the practice of attaching knotted string to the log line. The ship's speed can be measured by the number of knots that play out while the sand glass is running.The distance between the knots on the log-line should contain 1/120 of a mile, supposing the glass to run exactly half a minute. [Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, "A Voyage to South America" 1760]
Hence the word knot came also to be used as the equivalent of a nautical mile (in pre-WWII use in U.S. and Britain, 6,080 feet). A speed of 10 knots will cover ten nautical miles in an hour (equivalent to a land speed of about 11.5 mph). - manta (n.)
- very large ray (also called devilfish), 1760, from Spanish manta "blanket" (which is attested in English from 1748 in this sense, specifically in reference to a type of wrap or cloak worn by Spaniards), from Late Latin mantum "cloak," back-formation from Latin mantellum "cloak" (see mantle (n.)). The ray so called "for being broad and long like a quilt" [Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, "A Voyage to South America"].
- proportion (n.)
- late 14c., "due relation of one part to another," also "size, extent; compartative relation in size, degree, number, etc.," from Old French proporcion "measure, proportion" (13c.), from Latin proportionem (nominative proportio) "comparative relation, analogy," from phrase pro portione "according to the relation" (of parts to each other), from pro "for" (see pro-) + ablative of *partio "division," related to pars (see part (n.)). Phrase out of proportion attested by 1670s.
My fortunes [are] as ill proportioned as your legs. [John Marston, "Antonio and Mellida," 1602]
- Stradivarius (n.)
- valued type of violin, 1818, from Latinized form of name of Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), violin-maker of Cremona, or his sons or pupils. Short form Strad is attested from 1884.
- sucre (n.)
- monetary unit of Ecuador, 1886, named for Antonio José de Sucre (1795-1830), Venezuelan general and liberator of Ecuador.