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cardigan [cardigan 词源字典]: cardigan: [19] The cardigan was named after James Thomas Brudenell, 7th earl of Cardigan (1797–1868), an early sporter of button-through woollen jackets. His other, but less successful, claim to fame was that he led the Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) at Balaclava during the Crimean War.
[cardigan etymology, cardigan origin, 英语词源]
ambulance (n.): 1798, "mobile or field hospital," from French (hôpital) ambulant, literally "walking (hospital)," from Latin ambulantem (nominative ambulans), present participle of ambulare "to walk" (see amble).
AMBULANCE, s. f. a moveable hospital. These were houses constructed in a manner so as to be taken to pieces, and carried from place to place, according to the movements of the army; and served as receptacles in which the sick and wounded men might be received and attended. ["Lexicographica-Neologica Gallica" (The Neological French Dictionary), William Dupré, London, 1801]
The word was not common in English until the meaning transferred from "field hospital" to "vehicle for conveying wounded from field" (1854) during the Crimean War. In late 19c. U.S. the word was used dialectally to mean "prairie wagon." Ambulance-chaser as a contemptuous term for a type of lawyer dates from 1897.
balaclava (n.): "woolen head covering," especially worn by soldiers, evidently named for village near Sebastopol, Russia, site of a battle Oct. 25, 1854, in the Crimean War. But the term (originally Balaclava helmet) does not appear before 1881 and seems to have come into widespread use in the Boer War. The British troops suffered from the cold in the Crimean War, and the usage might be a remembrance of that conflict. The town name (Balaklava) often is said to be from Turkish, but is perhaps folk-etymologized from a Greek original Palakion.
cardigan (n.): 1868, from James Thomas Brudenell (1797-1868), 7th Earl of Cardigan, English general distinguished in the Crimean War, who set the style, in one account supposedly wearing such a jacket while leading the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava (1854). The place name is an anglicization of Welsh Ceredigion, literally "Ceredig's land." Ceredig lived 5c.
Cimmerian (adj.): late 16c., "pertaining to the Cimmerii," an ancient nomadic people who, according to Herodotus, inhabited the region around the Crimea, and who, according to Assyrian sources, overran Asia Minor 7c. B.C.E.; from Latin Cimmerius, from Greek Kimmerios. Homer described their land as a place of perpetual mist and darkness beyond the ocean, but whether he had in mind the same people Herodotus did, or any real place, is unclear.
Johnny: pet form of masc. proper name John (see -y (3)). Used as a contemptuous or humorous designation for some class or group of men from 1670s (it was the typical name in the North and the Northern armies for a Confederate soldier during the American Civil War). In the Mediterranean, it was a typical name for an Englishman by c. 1800; in the Crimean War, it became the typical name among the English for "a Turk," later extended to "an Arab" (who by World War II were using it in turn as the typical name for "a British man"). Johnny-come-lately first attested 1839.
pismire (n.): "ant," late 14c. (early 14c. as a surname), from pyss "urine" (said to be in reference to the acrid smell of an anthill) + mire "an ant," probably from Old Norse maurr "ant" (cognates: Swedish myra, Danish myre, Middle Dutch miere, Dutch mier, Crimean Gothic miera "ant"), from PIE base *morwi- (see Formica (2)). Compare pissant, also early Dutch mierseycke (from seycke "urine"), Finnish kusiainen (from kusi "urine").
He is as angry as a pissemyre,
Though þat he haue al that he kan desire.
[Chaucer]
Applied contemptuously to persons from 1560s.
Potemkin: in reference to Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin (1739-1791), favorite of Catherine II of Russia, especially in reference to the sham villages supposedly erected under his orders for the empressâ tour of Crimea (1787) to create an impression of prosperity and progress. The silent film "Battleship Potemkin" dates from 1925, depicting (with elaboration) events of 1905 and the mutiny of a Russian battleship named for the Tsarist minister.
raglan (n.): type of overcoat, 1863, named for British general Lord Raglan (1788-1855), commander of British forces in the Crimean War. The name is from a place in Wales.