quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- anniversary[anniversary 词源字典]
- anniversary: [13] Like annual, anniversary is based ultimately on Latin annus ‘year’. The underlying idea it contains is of ‘yearly turning’ or ‘returning’; the Latin adjective anniversārius was based on annus and versus ‘turning’ (related to a wide range of English words, from verse and convert to vertebra and vertigo). This was used in phrases such as diēs anniversāria ‘day returning every year’, and eventually became a noun in its own right.
=> annual, convert, verse[anniversary etymology, anniversary origin, 英语词源] - antimacassar
- antimacassar: [19] An antimacassar was a cloth spread over chairbacks in the 19th and early 20th centuries to protect them from greasy hair. It took its name from Macassar oil, a proprietary brand of hair oil made by Rowland and Son, allegedly from ingredients obtained from Makassar, a region of the island of Sulawesi (formerly Celebes) in Indonesia.
- bursar
- bursar: see purse
- caesarian
- caesarian: [17] The application of the adjective caesarian to the delivery of a baby by surgical incision through the abdomen and womb arises from the legend that Julius Caesar (c. 100–44 BC) himself or an earlier ancestor of his was born in this way. The name Caesar comes from the Latin phrase a caeso mātrisūtere, literally ‘from the mother’s cut womb’ (caesus was the past participle of the Latin verb caedere ‘cut’, from which English gets concise, incise, precise, etc). The abbreviation caesar for ‘caesarian section’ is mid 20th-century.
=> concise, incise, precise - cursary
- cursary: see course
- hussar
- hussar: [15] Ultimately, hussar is the same word as corsair. Its remote ancestor is Italian corsaro, which was borrowed via Old Serbian husar into Hungarian as huszár. This originally retained the meaning of corsair, ‘plunderer’, but gradually developed into ‘horseman’, and it was as ‘Hungarian horseman’ that English borrowed it.
=> corsair - impresario
- impresario: [18] Impresario has no etymological connection with ‘impressing’ people (often though it is mistakenly spelled impressario). It was borrowed from Italian, where it was a derivative of impresa ‘undertaking’. This in turn came from the verb imprendere ‘undertake’, which goes back to a hypothetical Vulgar Latin *imprendere (source of the archaic English emprise ‘enterprise’ [13]), a compound based on Latin prendere ‘take’. Hence an impresario is literally someone who ‘undertakes’ something.
- necessary
- necessary: [14] The original Latin adjective meaning ‘necessary’ was necesse (it was formed with the negative particle ne- from the stem of cēdere ‘yield’, source of English cede, and hence meant etymologically ‘unyielding’). This was subsequently extended to necessārius, and English acquired it via Anglo-Norman *necessarie.
=> cede, concede, proceed - rosary
- rosary: [14] Rosary comes from Latin rosārium ‘rose garden’, a derivative of rosa ‘rose’. It was a common conceit in the Middle Ages to name collections of verse or similar short pieces after bunches of flowers (anthology comes from the Greek word for ‘flower’, and a similar inspiration underlies florilegium, while a 13thcentury volume of the collected works of the Persian poet Sa’di was called the Rose garden).
That was the background against which a collection of Roman Catholic prayers, consisting of Aves, Paternosters, and Glorias, came to be known as a rosary. A string of beads of varying sizes came to be used for counting off how far one has got in saying these prayers (English bead itself comes from a word meaning ‘prayer’), and this too was termed rosary.
=> rose - Saracen
- Saracen: [13] The Saracens were etymologically ‘people of the sunrise’ – hence ‘easterners’. The word comes via Old French Saracin and late Latin saracēnus from Greek Sarakēnós, which was probably adapted from Arabic sharqī ‘eastern’. This was a derivative of sharq ‘sunrise’. Sarsen [17] stones, large isolated boulders found in southern England, were probably named from some fanciful association with Saracens.
- sarcasm
- sarcasm: [16] A sarcastic remark is etymologically one which involves the ‘rending of flesh’. Greek sárx meant ‘flesh’ (it has given English sarcoma [17] and sarcophagus), and it formed the basis of a verb sarkázein ‘tear the flesh’, hence ‘bite one’s lip, gnash one’s teeth’, and by further extension ‘make a cutting remark’. This gave rise to the late Greek derivative sarkasmós, which passed into English via late Latin sarcasmos and French sarcasme.
=> sarcoma, sarcophagus - sarcophagus
- sarcophagus: [17] A sarcophagus is etymologically a ‘flesh-eater’: the word comes via Latin sarcophagus from Greek sarkophágos, a compound formed from sárx ‘flesh’ (source of English sarcasm) and -phágos ‘eating’. This originated as the term for a particular type of limestone that in the ancient world was used for making coffins, since bodies buried in them quickly decomposed. By extension it came to be used for the coffins themselves.
=> sarcasm - sardonic
- sardonic: [17] The Greek word for ‘scornful, mocking’ was sardánios, but this came to be changed to sardónios, which literally meant ‘Sardinian’, through association with the Latin term herba Sardonia ‘Sardinian plant’, the name of a sort of plant which when eaten caused facial contortions that resembled a scornful grin. English acquired the word via Latin sardonius and French sardonique. The sardine [15] probably gets its name from Sardinia too.
=> sardine - sarsen
- sarsen: see saracen
- tsar
- tsar: [16] Caesar was a Roman cognomen (English gets caesarian from it) and from the days of Augustus was used as part of the title of ‘emperor’. The Germanic peoples took it over in this sense (it is the source of German kaiser) and passed it on to prehistoric Slavic as *tsēsari. This has evolved into Serbo-Croat and Bulgarian tsar and Russian tsar’ – source of English tsar.
=> caesar - adversarial (adj.)
- by 1892, from adversary + -al (1). Probably coined to avoid confusion which might arise with use of adversary (adj.), which is attested from late 14c. Related: Adversarially.
- adversary (n.)
- mid-14c., aduersere, from Anglo-French adverser (13c.), Old French adversaire "adversary, opponent, enemy," or directly from Latin adversarius "opponent, adversary, rival," noun use of adjective meaning "opposite, hostile, contrary," literally "turned toward one," from adversus "turned against" (see adverse). The Latin word is glossed in Old English by wiðerbroca.
- anasarca (n.)
- "subcutaneous dropsy," late 14c., medical Latin, from Greek ana "up, throughout" (see ana-) + sarx (genitive sarkos) "flesh" (see sarcasm). Abbreviation of Greek phrase hydrops ana sarka "dropsy throughout the flesh."
- anniversary (n.)
- early 13c., originally especially of the day of a person's death, from Medieval Latin anniversarium, from Latin anniversarius (adj.) "returning annually," from annus (genitive anni) "year" (see annual (adj.)) + versus, past participle of vertere "to turn" (see versus). The adjective came to be used as a noun in Church Latin as anniversaria (dies) in reference to saints' days. An Old English word for "anniversary" (n.) was mynddæg, literally "mind-day."
- anti-macassar (n.)
- also antimacassar, 1852, from anti- + macassar oil, proprietary name of a hair tonic advertised as imported from the district of Macassar on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The cloth was laid to protect chair and sofa fabric from people leaning their oily heads back against it.
- bursar (n.)
- "treasurer of a college," 1580s, from Anglo-Latin burser "treasurer" (13c.), from Medieval Latin bursarius "purse-bearer," from bursa (see purse (n.)). Related: Bursarial.
- bursary (n.)
- "treasury," 1690s, from Medieval Latin bursaria "treasurer's room," from bursarius (see bursar).
- Caesar
- c. 1200, see caesarian; Old English had casere, which would have yielded modern *coser, but it was replaced in Middle English by keiser, from Norse or Low German, and later in Middle English by the French or Latin form of the name. Cæsar was used as a title of emperors down to Hadrian (138 C.E.), and also is the root of German Kaiser and Russian tsar (see czar). He competes as progenitor of words for "king" with Charlemagne (Latin Carolus), as in Lithuanian karalius, Polish krol. In U.S. slang c. 1900, a sheriff was Great Seizer.
- Caesar salad
- 1952, said to be named not for the emperor, but for Cesar Cardini, restaurant owner in Tijuana, Mexico, who is said to have served the first one c. 1924.
- Caesarea
- Latin city name derived from Caesar, applied in honor of the emperors to some new and existing cities in the Roman Empire, including modern Kayseri, Turkey; Shaizar, Syria, and Cherchell, Algeria (representing a French spelling of an Arabic name based on a Berber garbling of the Latin word).
- caesarean
- see caesarian.
- caesarian (n.)
- 1923, shortening of Caesarian section (1610s); supposedly from Caius Julius Caesar, who was said to have been delivered surgically, thus legend traces his cognomen to Latin caesus past participle of caedere "to cut" (see -cide).
But if this is the etymology of the name, it was likely an ancestor who was so born (Caesar's mother lived to see his triumphs and such operations would have been fatal to the woman in ancient times). And Pliny derives his cognomen from caesaries "head of hair," because the future dictator was born with a full one. Caesarian section may come directly from caesus. - caravansary (n.)
- alternative spelling of caravanserai.
- Cesar
- Spanish form of masc. proper name Caesar.
- cesarean
- alternative spelling of caesarian (see also æ).
- cesarian
- alternative spelling of caesarian.
- commissar (n.)
- 1918, from Russian komissar, from German Kommissar "commissioner," from French, ultimately from Medieval Latin commissarius (see commissary).
- commissariat (n.)
- c. 1600, in Scottish law, "commissary court," from French commissariat, from Medieval Latin *commissariatus, from commissarius (see commissary). Military use is from 1779. In reference to the USSR, "ministry," from 1918.
- commissary (n.)
- mid-14c., "one to whom special duty is entrusted by a higher power," from Medieval Latin commissarius, from Latin commissus "entrusted," past participle of committere (see commit). Originally ecclesiastical; the military sense of "official in charge of supply of food, stores, transport" dates to late 15c. Hence "storeroom" (1882) and "dining room in a larger facility" (1929, American English).
- controversary (adj.)
- c. 1600, from stem of Latin controversus (see controversy) + -ary.
- diatessaron (n.)
- late 14c. as a term in music meaning "interval of a fourth;" 1803 in reference to harmonizings of the gospels, especially that of Tatian (2c.), from Greek dia tessaron, from dia "composed of" (literally "through;" see dia-) + tessaron "four," related to tessares (see four).
- disarm (v.)
- late 14c., from Old French desarmer (11c.), from des- (see dis-) + armer "to arm" (see arm (v.)). The figurative sense is slightly earlier in English than the literal. Related: Disarmed; disarming.
- disarmament (n.)
- 1795; see dis- + armament.
- disarray (v.)
- late 14c.; see dis- "lack of" + array. Perhaps formed on the analogy of Old French desareer.
- disarray (n.)
- early 15c., "disorder, confusion;" see disarray (v.).
- disarticulate (adj.)
- early 15c.; see dis- + articulate (adj.).
- dispensary (n.)
- "place for weighing out medicines," 1690s, from Medieval Latin dispensarius "one who dispenses," from Latin dispensare (see dispense).
- emissary (n.)
- 1620s, from French émissaire (17c.) or directly from Latin emissarius "a scout, a spy," literally "that is sent out," from emissus, past participle of emittere "send forth" (see emit).
- glossary (n.)
- "collected explanations of words (especially those not in ordinary use), a book of glosses," mid-14c., from Latin glossarium "collection of glosses," from Greek glossarion, diminutive of glossa "obsolete or foreign word" (see gloss (n.2)). Related: Glossarial.
- hussar (n.)
- 1530s, from German Husar, from Hungarian huszár "light horseman," originally "freebooter," from Old Serbian husar, variant of kursar "pirate," from Italian corsaro (see corsair). Bodies of light horsemen organized in Hungary late 15c., widely imitated elsewhere in Europe.
- impresario (n.)
- 1746, from Italian impresario "operatic manager," literally "undertaker (of a business)," from impresa "undertaking," fem. of impreso, past participle of imprendere "undertake," from Vulgar Latin imprendere, from assimilated form of in- "into, in, on, onto" (see in- (2)) + prehendere "to grasp" (see prehensile).
- infralapsarian (adj.)
- 1731, from infra- + Latin lapsus "a fall" (see lapse (n.)) + ending from unitarian, etc. In reference to the Calvinist doctrine that god's election of some to everlasting life was consequent to his decree to allow the Fall of man, and was thus a remedial measure. Contrasted to supralapsarian, in reference to the belief that He always meant to consign most of mankind to eternal fire and that the decision to create some men to be damned was his first decree. There's also a moderate sublapsarian view. Here the decree to elect those who would believe and leave those who do not believe to damnation also comes after the decree to allow the fall, but the decree to provide salvation for man comes immediately after the decree to elect.
- Macassar (adj.)
- especially in Macassar oil (1809), hair tonic originally advertised as made from materials obtained from Macassar (1660s), name of a district on the island of Celebes (modern Sulawesi); from native Mangkasara.
- mansard
- 1734, from French mansarde, short for toit à la mansarde, a corrupt spelling, named for French architect Nicholas François Mansart (1598-1666), who made use of them.
- necessarily (adv.)
- mid-15c., "inevitably, unavoidably," from necessary (adj.) + -ly (2).