英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

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]
applaud: applaud: [15] English probably acquired this word directly from Latin applaudere, which meant literally ‘clap at’. It was a compound formed from the prefix ad- ‘to’ and the verb plaudere ‘clap’, source also of plaudit [17] and of explode, whose original sense seems to have been ‘drive from the stage by clapping’ (or, presumably, by any other signals of disapproval favoured by Roman audiences).
=> explode, plaudit
chaplain: chaplain: see chapel
complacent: complacent: see complaisant
complain: complain: [14] Complain goes back to the Latin in verb plangere, source also of English plangent. This was formed on a prehistoric base *plak- (from which we also get plankton), and it originally meant ‘hit’. Its meaning developed metaphorically through ‘beat one’s breast’ to ‘lament’, and in medieval Latin it was combined with the intensive prefix com- to produce complangere. When it entered English via Old French complaindre it still meant ‘lament’, and although this sense had died out by about 1700, traces of it remain in ‘complain of’ a particular illness. Complaint [14] came from Old French complainte.
=> plangent, plankton
complaisant: complaisant: [17] Complaisant and complacent [17] are virtual doublets. Both come from Latin complacēre ‘please greatly’ (a compound verb formed from placēre, source of English please), but they reached English along different routes. Complaisant came via French, from complaisant, the present participle of complaire ‘gratify’, but complacent was a direct borrowing from the Latin present participle. It originally meant simply ‘pleasant, delightful’, and did not take on its present derogatory connotations (at first expressed by the now obsolete complacential) until the mid 18th century.
=> complacent, please
contemplate: contemplate: [16] Etymologically, to contemplate something is to observe it in a ‘temple’. The word comes from the past participle of Latin contemplārī, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix com- and templum. This word, source of course of English temple, originally signified a space marked out by augurs (priests in ancient Rome who interpreted omens) for making observations. Hence contemplārī originally meant ‘observe omens carefully’, but its application soon became more general.
=> temple
display: display: [14] Display originally meant ‘unfold’, and it is related not to modern English play but to ply. It comes via Old French despleier (whose modern French descendant, déployer, is the source of English deploy [18]) from Latin displicāre. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘un-’ and plicāre ‘fold’ (source of or related to English accomplish, complicated, ply, and simple), and in classical Latin seems only to have had the metaphorical meaning ‘scatter’.

In medieval Latin, however, it returned to its underlying literal sense ‘unfold’, which was originally retained in English, particularly with reference to sails or flags. The notion of ‘spreading out’ is retained in splay, which was formed by lopping off the first syllable of display in the 14th century.
=> accomplish, complicate, deploy, ply, simple
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
explain: explain: [15] To explain a matter is literally to ‘make it plain’. The word comes from Latin explānāre, a compound verb formed from the intensive prefix ex- and the adjective plānus ‘flat’ (source of English plain). This originally meant ‘flatten out, make smooth’, but the metaphorical sense ‘make clear’ soon took over, and accompanied the verb into English (although in the 16th and 17th centuries a few scholars attempted to revive the literal sense: ‘He must calm and explain his forehead’, Sir Thomas Chalenor, translation of Desiderus Erasmus’ Praise of Folly 1549).
=> esplanade, plain
implacable: implacable: see please
placate: placate: see please
place: place: [13] A place is etymologically a ‘broad’ area. The word comes ultimately from the Greek expression plateia hodós ‘broad way’ (the adjective platús ‘broad’ is probably related to English flat). Plateia came to be used on its own as a noun, and passed into Latin as platea ‘broad street, open area’. This became changed in postclassical times to *plattja, which passed into English via Old French place.

Probably the closest the English word comes to its ancestral meaning is as a street name (as in Portland Place), introduced under French influence in the late 16th century, which originally denoted more an ‘open square’ than a ‘street’. But closer still are piazza [16] and plaza [17], borrowed respectively from the Italian and Spanish versions of the word. The homophonous plaice the fish-name is a distant relative.
=> flat, piazza, plaice, plate, platypus, plaza
placebo: placebo: [13] Placebo started life as the first person future singular of the Latin verb placēre ‘please’ (source of English please), and hence meant originally ‘I will please’. It was the first word of the antiphon to the first psalm in the Roman Catholic service for the dead, Placēbo Dominō in rēgiōne vivōrum ‘I will please the Lord in the land of the living’. The word’s medical use emerged at the end of the 18th, and arose from the notion of a medicine ‘pleasing’ the patient rather than having any direct physiological effect.
=> please
placenta: placenta: [17] Latin placenta originally meant ‘flat cake’. It was borrowed from Greek plakóenta, the accusative form of plakóeis ‘flat cake’, which was derived from pláx ‘flat surface’ (possible relative of English plank). Its application to the afterbirth (originally in the phrase placenta uterīna ‘uterine cake’) is a postclassical development, inspired by the flat round shape of the afterbirth.
placid: placid: see please
plagiarize: plagiarize: [17] Latin plagium meant ‘kidnapping’ – it was a derivative of plaga ‘net’. From it was formed plagārius ‘kidnapper’, which was used metaphorically by the epigrammatist Martial for ‘literary thief’ – the sense in which the word reached English.
plague: plague: [14] Etymologically, plague means a ‘blow’ or ‘stroke’. It goes back to the same prehistoric base, *plag- ‘hit’, as produced Latin plangere ‘beat’ (source of English complain, plaintiff [14], plaintive [14], and plangent [19] – which originally denoted the sound of waves ‘beating’ against the shore) and English plankton.

From this was derived Greek plāgá ‘blow’, which was borrowed into Latin as plāga ‘blow’, hence ‘wound’. In the Vulgate it was used for an ‘infectious disease’, and was borrowed in this sense (as well as the now defunct ‘blow’) via Old French into English. (*Plak-, a parallel form to *plag-, lies behind English apoplexy and plectrum [17].)
=> apoplexy, complain, plaintive, plangent, plankton, plectrum
plaice: plaice: [13] The plaice is etymologically the ‘broad’ fish. Its name goes back ultimately to Greek platūs ‘broad’ (which makes it distantly related to place). From this was descended, via some missing links, late Latin platessa ‘flatfish’, which became Old French plaïs – whence English plaice.
=> place, plate, platypus
plain: plain: [13] Plain is etymologically the same word as plane in all its uses except the tree-name, and even that comes from the same ultimate source. This was Indo-European *plā- ‘flat’, which produced Greek platús ‘broad’ (source of English place, plaice, and platypus), Latin plānus ‘flat, clear’, and possibly English flat. The Latin word passed into English via Old French plain, but its original ‘flat’ senses have been hived off into the separately acquired plane, leaving only the metaphorically derived ‘clear’ senses. The Italian descendant of plānus has given English piano.
=> plane
plaintiff: plaintiff: see plague
plaintive: plaintive: see plague
plait: plait: see pleat
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
plasma: plasma: see plastic
plaster: plaster: [OE] Like plastic, plaster comes ultimately from the Greek verb plássein ‘mould’. Combination with the prefix en- ‘in’ produced emplássein ‘daub on, plaster’. From its past participle emplastós was derived émplastron ‘medicinal application to the skin’, which reached Latin as emplastrum. Medieval Latin shortened it to plastrum, which Old English adopted as plaster. Its use for a ‘soft substance spread on walls, etc’ was introduced via Old French plastre in the 14th century.
=> plastic
plastic: plastic: [16] Plastic is etymologically a ‘mouldable’ substance. The word comes via French plastique and Latin plasticus from Greek plastikós ‘fit for moulding’, a derivative of the verb plássein ‘mould’ (source also of English plasma [18] and plaster). Up until the 20th century its main use in English was as an adjective, meaning ‘pliable’. The first record of its use for a ‘synthetic material made from organic compounds’ comes from 1909. The trade-name Plasticine was coined from it in the 1890s.
=> plasma, plaster
plate: plate: [13] Etymologically, a plate is something ‘flat’. It comes from Vulgar Latin *plattus ‘flat’, which may go back to Greek platús ‘broad’ (source of English place, plane the tree, and platypus). It reached English via two separate Old French words, which have since coalesced: first plate, which gives the sense ‘flat sheet’, as in silver plate and plate glass; and then, in the 15th century, plat, ‘dish for food’.

Related forms in English include plateau [18], platform [16] (etymologically a ‘flat form’), platinum [19], platitude [19] (a ‘flat’ or dull remark), and platter [14].
=> flat, place, plane, plateau, platform, platinum, platitude, platter, platypus
platoon: platoon: [17] Platoon means etymologically ‘little ball’. It comes from French peloton, a diminutive form of pelote ‘ball’ (source of English pellet). The notion of a ‘small ball’ was extended in French to a ‘little cluster of people or group of soldiers’ – hence the meaning of English platoon.
=> pellet, pelota
platter: platter: see plate
platypus: platypus: [18] The platypus’s name means literally ‘flat-footed’. It was given to it at the end of the 18th century, and is first recorded in George Shaw’s Naturalists’ Miscellany 1799. It was adapted from Greek platúpous, a compound formed from platús ‘flat’ (source of English place, plaice, and plane the tree) and poús ‘foot’ (a relative of English foot).
=> foot, place, plane, plate
play: play: [OE] The origins of play are obscure. It had a relative in Middle Dutch pleien ‘dance about, jump for joy’, but this has now died out, leaving it in splendid but puzzling isolation, its ancestry unaccounted for. Its underlying meaning appears to be ‘make rapid movements for purposes of recreation’, but already in Old English times it was being used for ‘perform on a musical instrument’. The earliest record of the use of the noun for a ‘dramatic work’ is from the 14th century.
poplar: poplar: [14] The ancestor of poplar was Latin pōpulus ‘poplar’ (not to be confused with populus ‘people’). This passed into Old French as pople, which with the addition of the treename suffix -ier became poplier. Its Anglo- Norman version was popler, from which English got poplar.
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).
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).
airplane (n.): 1907, from air (n.1) + plane (n.1); though the original references are British, the word caught on in American English, where it largely superseded earlier aeroplane (1873 in this sense and still common in British English). Aircraft "airplane" also is from 1907. Lord Byron, speculatively, used air-vessel (1822).
airplay (n.): 1950 in radio sense, from air (n.1) + play.
angioplasty (n.): by 1976, from angio- + -plasty.
anyplace (n.): 1911, from any + place.
aplasia (n.): 1885, medical Latin, from Greek a-, privative prefix (see a- (3)), + -plasia.
applaud (v.): late 15c. (implied in applauding), "to express agreement or approval; to praise," from Latin applaudere "to clap the hands in approbation, to approve by clapping hands; to strike upon, beat," from ad "to" (see ad-) + plaudere "to clap" (see plaudit). Sense of "express approval of" is from 1590s; that of "to clap the hands" is from 1590s. Figurative sense arrived in English before literal. Related: Applauded; applauding.
applause (n.): early 15c., from Latin applausus, past participle of applaudere "approve by clapping hands" (see applaud).