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aeroplane [aeroplane 词源字典]: aeroplane: [19] The prefix aero- comes ultimately from Greek āér ‘air’, but many of the terms containing it (such as aeronaut and aerostat) reached English via French. This was the case, too, with aeroplane, in the sense of ‘heavier-than-air flying machine’. The word was first used in English in 1873 (30 years before the Wright brothers’ first flight), by D S Brown in the Annual Report of the Aeronautical Society – he refers vaguely to an aeroplane invented by ‘a Frenchman’.

The abbreviated form plane followed around 1908. (An earlier, and exclusively English, use of the word aeroplane was in the sense ‘aerofoil, wing’; this was coined in the 1860s, but did not long survive the introduction of the ‘aircraft’ sense.) Aeroplane is restricted in use mainly to British English (and even there now has a distinctly old-fashioned air). The preferred term in American English is airplane, a refashioning of aeroplane along more ‘English’ lines which is first recorded from 1907.
=> air[aeroplane etymology, aeroplane origin, 英语词源]
ambulance: ambulance: [19] Originally, ambulance was a French term for a field hospital – that is, one set up at a site convenient for a battlefield, and capable of being moved on to the next battlefield when the army advanced (or retreated). In other words, it was an itinerant hospital, and the ultimate source of the term is the Latin verb ambulāre ‘walk’ (as in amble). The earliest recorded term for such a military hospital in French was the 17th-century hôpital ambulatoire.

This was later replaced by hôpital ambulant, literally ‘walking hospital’, and finally, at the end of the 18th century, by ambulance. This sense of the word had died out by the late 19th century, but already its attributive use, in phrases such as ambulance cart and ambulance wagon, had led to its being used for a vehicle for carrying the wounded or sick.
=> acid, alacrity, amble, perambulator
avalanche: avalanche: [18] Not surprisingly, avalanche originated in the Alps. The French dialect of Savoy, an area near the Italian border in the western Alps, had a term lavantse, apparently derived from a Vulgar Latin *labanca (whence Provençal lavanca). Through association with the verb avaler ‘descend’ (see DOWN), this underwent metathesis (transposition of l and v) to produce in the Romansh language of Switzerland avalantze, which was borrowed into French as avalanche.
balance: balance: [13] The underlying etymological meaning of balance is of a weighing apparatus with ‘two pans’ for holding things. In Latin this was a lībra bilanx, literally ‘scales with two pans’ – bilanx being compounded from bi- ‘two’ and lanx ‘plate, pan’. Bilanx passed, in its stem from bilanc-, via Vulgar Latin *bilancia into Old French balance, the source of the English word.
blanch: blanch: see blank
blancmange: blancmange: [14] Blancmange means literally simply ‘white food’. It comes from a French compound made up of blanc ‘white’ and manger, a noun derived from the verb manger ‘eat’ (related to English manger). Originally it was a savoury dish, of chicken or similar white meat in a sauce made with cream, eggs, rice, etc and often sugar and almonds. Gradually the meat content came to be omitted, and blancmange turned into a sweet dish, typically containing gelatine.
=> manger
blank: blank: [15] Although English got blank from French blanc ‘white’, its ultimate source is Germanic. Forms such as Old High German blanc ‘white’ suggest a prehistoric Germanic *blangkaz, which could have been borrowed into Romanic, the undifferentiated precursor of the Romance languages, as *blancus – hence French blanc, Italian bianco, Spanish blanco, and Portuguese branco.

The word originally meant simply ‘white’ in English, but this sense had all but died out by the early 18th century, by which time the present-day ‘unmarked’ was well established. Other derivatives of French blanc include the verb blanch [14], from French blanchier, and blanket [13], from Old French blancquet. Blanco is a trade name (based on blanc) coined in the 1890s for a whitening preparation for military webbing (subsequently applied to the khakicoloured version as well).
=> blanch, blanket
celandine: celandine: [12] Etymologically the celandine, a buttercup-like spring flower, is the ‘swallow’s’ flower. Its name comes, via Old French, from Greek khelidonion, which was based on khelidon ‘swallow’. The original reference was no doubt to the appearance of the flowers around the time when the swallows began to arrive in Europe from Africa. Its juice was used in former times as a remedy for poor eyesight, and, no doubt in an over-interpretation of the name, it was said that swallows used the juice to boost the sight of their young.
clan: clan: [14] The immediate source of clan is naturally enough Gaelic, but ultimately it comes, somewhat unexpectedly, from Latin, for etymologically it is the same word as plant. Scots Gaelic clann originally meant ‘offspring’ (hence the modern meaning ‘family group’), and it came from Old Irish cland, a direct borrowing from Latin planta (the Celtic languages of the British Isles tended to change Latin /p/ to /k/).

This was the source of English plant, but it did not then have nearly such a broad application; it meant specifically ‘shoot suitable for planting out’, and the connotations of ‘new growth’ and ‘offspring’ show up in the Gaelic borrowing.
=> plant
clandestine: clandestine: see conceal
clangor: clangor: see laugh
colander: colander: [14] Colander probably comes ultimately from Latin colum ‘sieve’. From this was derived the verb cōlāre ‘strain’, which produced a Vulgar Latin noun *cōlātor. This is assumed to have passed into Old Provençal as colador, which appears to have been the source of early English forms such as culdor- and culatre. The n is a purely English innovation.
=> percolate, portcullis
eland: eland: [18] Although the eland is an African animal, it has an ancient European name, given to it by Dutch settlers in South Africa. Eland is the Dutch word for an ‘elk’ (the European version of the North American moose); it comes via German from Lithuanian élnis, which goes back ultimately to a prehistoric Indo-European source (*oln-, *eln-) which also produced English elk.
=> elk
esplanade: esplanade: [17] Essentially, esplanade is the same word as explain, but whereas explain has lost its underlying literal meaning, esplanade has retained at least a memory of it. It comes ultimately from Latin explānāre, which meant ‘flatten out’, and so esplanade (acquired via French from the Spanish past participle esplanada) was originally simply a ‘large level area’. Its application to the ‘promenade’ at seaside towns is a comparatively recent development.
=> explain
flan: flan: [19] The word flan itself is a relatively recent addition to English, adopted on our behalf from French by the chef Alexis Soyer (a Frenchman working in England), but in that form it is in fact simply a reborrowing of a word which originally crossed the Channel in the 13th century as flawn, denoting some sort of custard tart or cheesecake. Its Old French source was flaon, which came from medieval Latin fladō, but this was originally borrowed from Germanic *fladu- (source of German fladen ‘flat cake, cowpat’ and Dutch vlade ‘pancake’), which is probably related ultimately to Sanskrit prthūs ‘broad’, Greek platūs ‘broad’, and English flat.
=> flat
flank: flank: see link
flannel: flannel: [14] Flannel is probably one of the few Welsh contributions to the English language. It appears to be an alteration of Middle English flanen ‘sackcloth’, which was borrowed from Welsh gwlanen ‘woollen cloth’, a derivative of gwlān ‘wool’. This in turn is related to Latin lāna ‘wool’ and English wool. It is not clear where the British colloquial sense ‘insincere talk’ (which seems to date from the 1920s) comes from, although it may well have been inspired by Shakespeare’s unflattering application of the word to a Welshman in the Merry Wives of Windsor 1598: ‘I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel’, says Falstaff of Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson.
=> wool
gallant: gallant: [14] Gallant originated as the present participle of Old French galer ‘make merry, rejoice’. This probably came from Gallo- Romance *walāre, a derivative of Frankish *wala ‘well’ (of which English well is a relative). Following its French model, the English adjective originally meant ‘showy, splendid, gorgeous’ as well as ‘spirited, brave’ and ‘courteous, polished’ (the last of which led in the 17th century to ‘courteously attentive to women’ and ‘amorous’). Regale [17] too goes back to Old French galer.
=> regale, well
glance: glance: [15] ‘Touch or deflect lightly’, as in ‘glance off something’ and a ‘glancing blow’, is the primary meaning of glance; ‘look briefly’ did not develop until the 16th century. The word may have originated as an alteration of the Middle English verb glacen ‘glide, slide’ (probably under the influence of Middle English glenten, the ancestor of modern English glint). Glacen was borrowed from Old French glacier ‘slide’, a derivative of glace ‘ice’ (from which English also gets glacier).
=> glacier
island: island: [OE] Despite their similarity, island has no etymological connection with isle (their resemblance is due to a 16th-century change in the spelling of island under the influence of its semantic neighbour isle). Island comes ultimately from a prehistoric Germanic *aujō, which denoted ‘land associated with water’, and was distantly related to Latin aqua ‘water’.

This passed into Old English as īeg ‘island’, which was subsequently compounded with land to form īegland ‘island’. By the late Middle English period this had developed to iland, the form which was turned into island. (A diminutive form of Old English īeg, incidentally, has given us eyot ‘small island in a river’ [OE].) Isle [13] itself comes via Old French ile from Latin insula (the s is a 15th-century reintroduction from Latin).

Other contributions made by insula to English include insular [17], insulate [16], insulin, isolate (via Italian) [18], and peninsula [16].
=> eyot
lance: lance: [13] Lance is now a fairly widespread word throughout the European languages: German has lanze, for instance, Swedish lans, Italian lancia, and Spanish lanza. English acquired the word from Old French lance, which in turn came from Latin lancea, but its ultimate origin may have been Celtic. Derived words in English include élan and launch. Lance corporals [18] were not named because they carried lances. The term was based on the now obsolete lancepesade ‘officer of lowest rank’, which came via Old French from Old Italian lancia spezzata, literally ‘broken lance’, hence ‘old soldier’.
=> élan, launch
land: land: [OE] Land goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *landam. This seems originally to have meant ‘particular (enclosed) area’ (ancestor of the modern sense ‘nation’), but in due course it branched out to ‘solid surface of the earth in general’. The term is now common to all the Germanic languages, and it has distant relatives in Welsh llan ‘enclosure, church’ and Breton lann ‘heath’ (source of French lande ‘heath, moor’, from which English gets lawn).
=> lawn
language: language: [13] Like English tongue, Latin lingua ‘tongue’ was used figuratively for ‘language’; from it English gets linguist [16] and linguistic [19]. In the Vulgar Latin spoken by the inhabitants of Gaul, the derivative *linguāticum emerged, and this became in due course Old French langage, source of English language. (The u in the English word, which goes back to the end of the 13th century, is due to association with French langue ‘tongue’.)
=> linguistic
languish: languish: see relish
lank: lank: see link
lanolin: lanolin: see wool
lantern: lantern: [13] Like lamp, lantern comes ultimately from the Greek verb lámbein ‘give light, shine’. Derived from this was the noun lamptér, which originally denoted ‘bunch of burning sticks, torch’, but was later extended to ‘lamp’. Latin borrowed it, and tacked on the ending of lucerna ‘lamp’ to produce lanterna, which English acquired via Old French lanterne. The translucent cover of lanterns was in former times usually made of horn, and so popular etymology from the 16th to the 19th centuries produced the spelling lanthorn.
=> lamp
melancholy: melancholy: [14] Etymologically, melancholy means ‘black gall’. The word comes via Old French melancolie and late Latin melancholia from Greek melagkholíā, a compound formed from mélās ‘black’ (source also of English melanin [19] and melanoma [19]) and kholé ‘bile’ (a relative of English gall). This ‘black bile’ was one of the four bodily substances or ‘humours’ whose relative preponderance, according to medieval medical theory, determined a person’s physical and mental state. Excess of black bile was thought to cause depression – hence the modern meaning of melancholy.
=> gall, melanoma
miscellaneous: miscellaneous: see mix
nonchalant: nonchalant: [18] To be nonchalant is etymologically ‘not to get hot under the collar’. The word comes from French nonchalant, an adjective formed with the prefix non- ‘not’ from the present participle of the verb chaloir ‘be concerned’. This goes back ultimately to Latin calēre ‘be hot’ (a relative of English calorie and cauldron).
=> calorie, cauldron, lukewarm
petulant: petulant: see repeat
philander: philander: see philosophy
philanthropy: philanthropy: see philosophy
plan: plan: [18] A plan is etymologically a design that has been ‘planted’ on the ground. Indeed in French, from which English acquired the word, it was originally plant, and was not altered to plan until the 16th century, under the influence of plan ‘flat’ (source of English plane ‘flat’). It was a derivative of the verb planter ‘plant’, and originally referred to the laying-out of the ground plan of a building. The metaphor seems first to have arisen in Italian pianta ‘ground plan’, a relative of plant, which prompted its development in French.
=> plant
planchette: planchette: see plank
plane: plane: English has five distinct planes, four of which are essentially the same word as plain. These come ultimately from Latin plānus, but preserve its ‘flat’ meanings rather than (like plain) its ‘clear’ meanings. Plane ‘flat surface’ [17] comes from Latin plānum, a noun use of the neuter form of the adjective; it is the plane from which aeroplane, and hence its abbreviation plane, were formed. Plane ‘carpenter’s smoothing tool’ [14] comes via Old French plane from late Latin plāna, a derivative of the verb plānāre ‘make level’, itself a derivative of plānus. Plane ‘flat’ [17] is an alteration of plain, on the model of French plan ‘flat’.

And plane ‘glide, soar’ [17] comes from French planer, a derivative of plan ‘level surface’ (the underlying notion being of a bird soaring with level wings). The odd man out is plane the tree-name [14], which comes via Old French plane and Latin platanus from Greek plátanos, a derivative of platús ‘broad’ (source of English place, plaice, and platypus) – the reference being to its broad leaves. Platanus probably also underlies English plantain, as applied to the banana-like vegetable.
=> piano, plain; place, plaice, plantain, plate, platypus
planet: planet: [12] A planet is etymologically a ‘wanderer’. The word comes via Old French planete and late Latin planēta from Greek planétos, a derivative of the verb planasthai ‘wander’. This was applied to any heavenly body that appeared to move or ‘wander’ across the skies among the fixed stars, which in ancient astronomy included the sun and moon as well as Mars, Venus, etc. The modern application to a ‘body that orbits the sun (or similar star)’ dates from the mid 17th century.
plangent: plangent: see plague
plank: plank: [13] The etymological idea underlying plank may be ‘flatness’. It comes via planke, a northern dialect version of Old French planche (source of English planchette [19]), from late Latin planca ‘slab’, a derivative of the adjective plancus ‘flat’. This may have come from the same source as Greek pláx ‘flat surface’, ancestor of English placenta.
=> planchette
plankton: plankton: [19] The ultimate source of plankton is Greek plázein ‘hit’, a descendant of the same base as produced English apoplexy, plague, and plectrum. The link between these two unlikelysounding relatives is that something that is hit moves or wanders, and plankton are minute organisms that wander or drift in the ocean. The Greek derivative plagtón meant ‘wanderer’, and the application to ‘plankton’ was first made in German in the 1880s.
=> plague
plant: plant: [OE] Etymologically, a plant is probably something you press into the ground with the ‘sole’ of your foot. The word was borrowed from Latin planta ‘shoot, sprout, cutting’, a derivative of the verb plantāre ‘plant, transplant’, and it has been speculated that this was based on Latin planta ‘sole of the foot’ (source of English plantain and plantigrade ‘walking on the soles of the feet’ [19]).
=> plan, plantain
plantain: plantain: Two entirely unrelated plants have the name plantain. Both get it from their broad leaves. One, an insignificant-looking weed [14], comes via Old French plantain from Latin plantāgō, a derivative of planta ‘sole of the foot’ (source of English plantigrade and possibly plant). The other, a tropical plant of the banana family [16], was originally named by the Spaniards plántano ‘plane tree’, a descendant of the same Latin source as produced English plane (which etymologically means ‘broad-leaved’). This was adopted by English and quickly altered to the more familiar plantain.
=> plan, plant; plane
pusillanimous: pusillanimous: [16] Pusillanimous means etymologically ‘tiny-spirited’. It comes from late Latin pūsillanimis, a compound adjective formed from pūsillus ‘very small or weak’ (a descendant of the same base as produced Latin puer ‘child, boy’, source of English puerile) and animus ‘mind, spirit’ (source of English animate).
=> animal, animate, puerile
semblance: semblance: see similar
slander: slander: [13] Slander and scandal are ultimately the same word. Both go back to Latin scandalum ‘cause of offence’. This passed into Old French as escandle, which in due course had its consonants switched round to produce esclandre, source of English slander. Scandal was borrowed from the later French form scandale.
=> scandal
slang: slang: [18] Slang is a mystery word. It first appeared in underworld argot of the mid-18th century. It had a range of meanings – ‘cant’, ‘nonsense’, ‘line of business’, and, as a verb, ‘defraud’. Most of these have died out, but ‘cant’ is the lineal ancestor of the word’s modern meaning. It is not clear where it came from, although the use of the verb slang for ‘abuse’, and the expression slanging match ‘abusive argument’, suggest some connection with Norwegian dialect sleng- ‘offensive language’ (found only in compounds).
supplant: supplant: [13] Supplant has no connection with things that grow, even though it may be related to English plant. Etymologically it means ‘trip up’. It comes via Old French supplanter from Latin supplantāre ‘trip up’, hence ‘overthrow’, a compound verb formed from the prefix sub- ‘up from under’ and planta ‘sole of the foot’ (possible ancestor of English plant).
surveillance: surveillance: see vigil
aeroplane (n.): 1866, from French aéroplane (1855), from Greek aero- "air" (see air (n.1)) + stem of French planer "to soar," from Latin planus "level, flat" (see plane (n.1)). Originally in reference to surfaces (such as the protective shell casings of beetles' wings); meaning "heavier than air flying machine" first attested 1873, probably an independent English coinage (see airplane).
ailanthus (n.): "tree of heaven," 1807, Modern Latin, from Amboyna (Malay) ailanto "tree of the gods;" spelling altered by influence of Greek anthos "flower" (see anther).