quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- tommy gun[tommy gun 词源字典]
- tommy gun: [20] The name of the tommy gun, a lightweight hand-held machine gun favoured by Chicago gangsters, commemorates its originator: as its full designation, the Thompson submachine gun, reveals, a man called Thompson. He was John T. Thompson (1860– 1940), a general in the US Army who had links with the Auto-Ordnance Corporation of New York City. The idea for the gun was originally his, and although it was actually designed by O.V. Payne, it was Thompson’s name that it carried when it came on the market in 1919. The substitution with the colloquial Tommy is first recorded in 1929.
[tommy gun etymology, tommy gun origin, 英语词源] - marzipan (n.)
- 1901 (in modern use; earlier march payne, late 15c., from French or Dutch), from German Marzipan, from Italian marzapane "candy box," from Medieval Latin matapanus "small box," earlier, "coin bearing image of seated Christ" (altered in Italian by folk etymology as though from Latin Marci panis "bread of Mark"), of uncertain origin. One suggestion is that this is from Arabic mawthaban "king who sits still." Nobody seems to quite accept this, but nobody has a better idea. The Medieval Latin word also is the source of Spanish marzapan, French massepain.
- pagan (n.)
- late 14c., from Late Latin paganus "pagan," in classical Latin "villager, rustic; civilian, non-combatant" noun use of adjective meaning "of the country, of a village," from pagus "country people; province, rural district," originally "district limited by markers," thus related to pangere "to fix, fasten," from PIE root *pag- "to fix" (see pact). As an adjective from early 15c.
Religious sense is often said to derive from conservative rural adherence to the old gods after the Christianization of Roman towns and cities; but the word in this sense predates that period in Church history, and it is more likely derived from the use of paganus in Roman military jargon for "civilian, incompetent soldier," which Christians (Tertullian, c.202; Augustine) picked up with the military imagery of the early Church (such as milites "soldier of Christ," etc.). Applied to modern pantheists and nature-worshippers from 1908.
Pagan and heathen are primarily the same in meaning; but pagan is sometimes distinctively applied to those nations that, although worshiping false gods, are more cultivated, as the Greeks and Romans, and heathen to uncivilized idolaters, as the tribes of Africa. A Mohammedan is not counted a pagan much less a heathen. [Century Dictionary, 1902]
The English surname Paine, Payne, etc., appears by old records to be from Latin paganus, but whether in the sense "villager," "rustic," or "heathen" is disputed. It also was a common Christian name in 13c., "and was, no doubt, given without any thought of its meaning" ["Dictionary of English Surnames"]. - painstaking
- 1550s (n.), 1690s (adj.), paynes taking, from plural of pain (n.) + present participle of take (v.). Related: Painstakingly.
- Spain
- c. 1200, from Anglo-French Espayne, from Late Latin Spania, from Latin Hispania (see Spaniard). The usual Old English form was Ispania.
- agitative
- "Tending to agitate or move (something); involving agitation", Early 16th cent.; earliest use found in Thomas Paynell (d. ?1564), translator. From post-classical Latin agitativus that produces movement from classical Latin agitāt-, past participial stem of agitāre + -īvus.