英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

sweetbread [sweetbread 词源字典]: sweetbread: see pancreas
[sweetbread etymology, sweetbread origin, 英语词源]
basketball (n.): 1892, American English, from basket + ball (n.1). The game was invented 1891 by James A. Naismith (1861-1939), physical education instructor in Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
breastbone (n.): "sternum," Old English breostban; see breast (n.) + bone (n.).
carpetbag (n.): also carpet-bag, "soft-cover traveling case made of carpet fabric," 1830, from carpet (n.) + bag (n.).
carpetbagger (n.): also carpet-bagger, 1868, American English, scornful appellation for Northerners who went South after the fall of the CSA seeking private gain or political advancement. The name is based on the image of men arriving with all their worldly goods in a big carpetbag. Sense later extended to any opportunist from out of the area.
catbird (n.): 1731, common name for the North American thrush (Dumetella Carolinensis), so called from its warning cry, which resembles that of a cat; from cat (n.) + bird (n.1). Catbird seat is a 19c. Dixieism, popularized by Brooklyn Dodgers baseball announcer Red Barber and by author James Thurber (1942).
"She must be a Dodger fan," he had said. "Red Barber announces the Dodger games over the radio and he uses those expressions--picked 'em up down South." Joey had gone on to explain one or two. "Tearing up the pea patch" meant going on a rampage; "sitting in the catbird seat" means sitting pretty, like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him. [James Thurber, "The Catbird Seat," "The New Yorker," Nov. 14, 1942]
dustbin (n.): 1848, from dust (n.) + bin.
football (n.): open-air game involving kicking a ball, c. 1400; in reference to the inflated ball used in the game, mid-14c. ("Ãe heued fro Ã¾e body went, Als it were a foteballe," Octavian I manuscript, c. 1350), from foot (n.) + ball (n.1). Forbidden in a Scottish statute of 1424. One of Shakespeare's insults is "you base foot-ball player" [Lear I.iv]. Ball-kicking games date back to the Roman legions, at least, but the sport seems first to have risen to a national obsession in England, c. 1630. Figurative sense of "something idly kicked around, something subject to hard use and many vicissitudes" is by 1530s.

Rules of the game first regularized at Cambridge, 1848; soccer (q.v.) split off in 1863. The U.S. style (known to some in England as "stop-start rugby with padding") evolved gradually 19c.; the first true collegiate game is considered to have been played Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, at Rutgers, but the rules there were more like soccer. A rematch at Princeton Nov. 13, with the home team's rules, was true U.S. football. Both were described as foot-ball at Princeton.
Then twenty-five of the best players in college were sent up to Brunswick to combat with the Rutgers boys. Their peculiar way of playing this game proved to Princeton an insurmountable difficulty; .... Two weeks later Rutgers sent down the same twenty-five, and on the Princeton grounds, November 13th, Nassau played her game; the result was joyous, and entirely obliterated the stigma of the previous defeat. ["Typical Forms of '71" by the Princeton University Class of '72, 1869]
frostbitten (adj.): also frost-bitten, 1550s, from frost (n.) + bitten.
hautboy (n.): "oboe, double-reeded woodwind instrument," 1570s, from French hautbois "high wood" (15c.; see oboe, which is the Italian phonetic spelling of the French word). The haut is used here in its secondary sense of "high-pitched." In early use frequently nativized as hoboy, hawboy, etc.
This Pageaunt waz clozd vp with a delectable harmony of Hautboiz, Shalmz, Coronets, and such oother looud muzik. [Robert Laneham, 1575]
heartbreak (n.): also heart-break, "overwhelming grief or sorrow," 1570s, from heart (n.) + break (n.). Expression break (someone's) heart is from c. 1400. Related: Heartbreaking.
heartbroken (adj.): also heart-broken, "deeply grieved," 1580s, past participle formation from heartbreak. Related: Heartbrokenly; heartbrokenness.
heartburn (n.): mid-13c., herte-brine "lust," later "burning sensation in the esophagus, indigestion" (mid-15c.); see heart (n.) + burn (n.). Compare cardiac for confusion of "heart" and "stomach." A Middle English alternative was herte-brenning "anger, bitterness" (c. 1400), also "heartburn" (mid-15c.).
hotbed (n.): 1620s, from hot + bed (n.); originally "bed of earth heated by fermenting manure for forcing growing plants;" generalized sense of "place that fosters rapid growth" is from 1768.
meatball (n.): 1801, from meat + ball (n.1). As an insult to a person, by 1941.
outback (n.): "back-country, interior regions of Australia," 1907, Australian English, originally an adverb, "out in the back settlements" (1878), from out + back (adv.).
outboard (adj.): "situated on the outside of a ship," 1823, from out + board (n.2). In reference to motors, from 1909.
outbreak (n.): "eruption" (of disease, hostilities, etc.), c. 1600, from out + break (v.). Outbreak was a verb in Middle English (c. 1300).
outburst (n.): 1650s, from out + burst (v.). Outbresten was a verb in Middle English (mid-12c.), from Old English utaberstan.
pocketbook (n.): also pocket-book, 1610s, originally a small book meant to be carried in one's pocket, from pocket (n.) + book (n.). Meaning "a booklike leather folder for papers, bills, etc." is from 1722. Meaning "a woman's purse" is from 1816.
Politburo (n.): "highest policy-making committee of the U.S.S.R.," 1927, from Russian politbyuro, contracted from politicheskoe byuro "political bureau."
potboiler (n.): also pot-boiler, 1864 in the figurative literary sense, from pot (n.1) + agent noun from boil (v.). The notion is of something one writes solely to put food on the table.
racquetball (n.): 1972, from racquet + ball (n.1).
ratbag (n.): also rat-bag, "unpleasant person," 1937, from rat (n.) + bag (n.).
setback (n.): also set-back, 1670s, "reversal, check to progress," from set (v.) + back (adv.). Sometimes backset was used in the same sense. Meaning "space between a building and a property line" is from 1916. To set (someone) back "cost" is from 1900.
shortbread (n.): also short-bread, 1755, from short (see shortening) + bread (n.).
softball (n.): baseball of larger than usual size, used in a scaled-down version of the game, 1914, from soft + ball (n.1). The game itself so called from 1916, also known as playground baseball. The word earlier was a term in sugar candy making (1894). Softball question, one that is easy to answer, is attested from 1976.
spitball (n.): 1846 in the schoolboy sense, "bit of paper chewed and rounded as a missile;" 1904 in the baseball sense, from spit (n.1) + ball (n.1).
sweetbread (n.): "pancreas of an animal used as food" 1560s, from sweet (adj.); the -bread element may be from Old English bræd "flesh."
textbook (n.): also text-book, "book used by students," 1779, from text (n.) + book (n.). Earlier (1730) it meant "book printed with wide spaces between the lines" for notes or translation (such a book would have been used by students), from the notion of the text of a book being more open than the close notes. As an adjective from 1916.
waistband (n.): 1580s, from waist + band (n.1).
wetback (n.): "illegal Mexican immigrant to the U.S.," c. 1924, from wet (adj.) + back (n.); from notion of wading the Rio Grande.
clotbur: "A herbaceous plant of the daisy family with burred fruits, native to tropical America but now found all over the world", Mid 16th century: from dialect clote 'burdock' + burr.
netbook: "A small laptop computer designed primarily for accessing Internet-based applications", Early 21st century: blend of Internet and notebook.
titbit: "A small piece of tasty food", Mid 17th century (as tyd bit, tid-bit): from dialect tid 'tender' (of unknown origin) + bit¹.