Word of Today

cloveyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[clove 词源字典]
clove: There are two distinct words clove in English. In clove of garlic [OE] the underlying notion is of ‘cutting’; the head of garlic is as it were ‘divided up’ into separate sections. The word goes back ultimately to the Indo-European base *gleubh- ‘cut, carve’, which also produced English cleave and its now archaic past tense clove. Clove the spice [14] originated in the Old French phrase clou de girofle, which meant literally ‘nail of the clove-tree’.

The term ‘nail’ was applied to the tree’s dried unopened flower bud because of a perceived resemblance in shape. (French clou ‘nail’ comes from Latin clāvus, source of English cloy, and French girofle – whence English gillyflower [14], which originally meant ‘clove’ – goes back via medieval Latin caryophyllum to Greek karuóphullon, which literally meant ‘nut leaf’.)

=> cleave; cloy, gillyflower[clove etymology, clove origin, 英语词源]