英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

arson [arson 词源字典]: arson: [17] Like ardour and ardent, arson comes from the Latin verb ardēre ‘burn’. Its past participle was arsus, from which was formed the noun arsiō ‘act of burning’. This passed via Old French into Anglo-Norman as arson, and in fact was in use in the Anglo-Norman legal language of England from the 13th century onwards (it occurs in the Statute of Westminster 1275). The jurist Sir Matthew Hale was the first to use the word in a vernacular text, in 1680. Other words in English ultimately related to it include arid and probably ash, area, and azalea.
=> ardour, area, ash, azalea[arson etymology, arson origin, 英语词源]
convent: convent: [13] Latin conventus meant ‘assembly’ (it was the past participle of convenire ‘come together’, source of English convenient), but as it passed via Anglo-Norman covent into English it acquired the specialized sense ‘religious community’ (in early use it was applied to communities of either sex, but since the end of the 18th century it has come to be used exclusively for a ‘house of nuns’).

Until the mid- 15th century the Anglo-Norman spelling covent was retained in English (it survives in Covent Garden, which was formerly a vegetable garden belonging to the monks of Westminster Abbey, and may also the the source of coven [16]).
=> convenient, coven, venue
tabloid: tabloid: [19] Tabloid originated as a trade-name for a brand of tablets of condensed medicine, registered in 1884 by Burroughs, Wellcome and Company. It was an alteration of tablet [14], which came from Old French tablete, a diminutive form of table (source of English table). This originally denoted a ‘slab for writing on or inscribing’. Such slabs would have been flat and often quite small, and in the late 16th century the term came to be applied to a ‘flat compressed piece of something’ – such as soap or medicine.

The notion of ‘compression’ or ‘condensation’ underlies the use of tabloid for newspapers of small page size and ‘condensed’ versions of news stories, which emerged at the beginning of the 20th century (‘He advocated tabloid journalism’, Westminster gazette 1 January 1901).
=> table
bohemian (n.): "a gypsy of society," 1848, from French bohemién (1550s), from the country name (see Bohemia). The modern sense is perhaps from the use of this country name since 15c. in French for "gypsy" (they were wrongly believed to have come from there, though their first appearance in Western Europe may have been directly from there), or from association with 15c. Bohemian heretics. It was popularized by Henri Murger's 1845 story collection "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme," the basis of Puccini's "La Bohème." Used in English 1848 in Thackary's "Vanity Fair."
The term 'Bohemian' has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gipsey, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits .... A Bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art. ["Westminster Review," 1862]
bureaucracy (n.): 1818, from French bureaucratie, coined by French economist Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay (1712-1759) on model of democratie, aristocratie, from bureau "office," literally "desk" (see bureau) + Greek suffix -kratia denoting "power of" (see -cracy).
That vast net-work of administrative tyranny ... that system of bureaucracy, which leaves no free agent in all France, except for the man at Paris who pulls the wires. [J.S. Mill, "Westminster Review" XXVIII, 1837]

bureaucrat, &c. The formation is so barbarous that all attempt at self-respect in pronunciation may perhaps as well be abandoned. [Fowler]
Carnaby Street (n.): street in Soho, London (Westminster), in mid-1960s lined with fashionable boutiques and clothing shops, hence used figuratively from 1964 for English 1960s stylishness. It was named for Karnaby House, built 1683, from a surname or transferred from Carnaby in Yorkshire, which is from a Scandinavian personal name + -by (see by).
implosion (n.): "a bursting inward," 1829, modeled on explosion, with assimilated form of in- "into, in, on, upon" (see in- (2)).
And to show how entire the neglect and confusion have been, they speak in the same breath of all these explosions, and of the explosion of a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, the result of which, instead of being a gas or an enlargement of bulk, a positive quantity, is a negative one. It is a vacuum, in a popular sense, because the produce is water. The result is an implosion (to coin a word), not an explosion .... ["Gas-light," "Westminster Review," October 1829]
In early use often in reference to effect of deep sea pressures, or in phonetics. Figurative sense is by 1960.
Iron Curtain (n.): in reference to the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, famously coined by Winston Churchill March 5, 1946, in speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, but it had been used earlier in this context (for example by U.S. bureaucrat Allen W. Dulles at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dec. 3, 1945). The figurative sense of "impenetrable barrier" is attested from 1819, and the specific sense of "barrier at the edge of the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union" is recorded from 1920. During World War II, Goebbels used it in German (ein eiserner Vorhang) in the same sense. Its popular use in the U.S. dates from Churchill's speech.
nance (n.): "effeminate man, homosexual," 1904, from female name Nancy (q.v.), which was in use as an adjective meaning "effeminate" (applied to men) from 1883, a shortening of earlier Miss Nancy.
Nancy, Miss, an opprobrious epithet for an exceedingly effeminate, over-nice young man. The original Miss Nancy, however, was a Mrs. Anna Old field, a celebrated actress, who died in 1730 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. She was extremely vain and nice about her dress, and as she lay in state, attended by two noblemen, she was attired, as she had directed shortly before her death, in "a very fine Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift with a tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, a pair of new kid gloves," etc., a circumstance alluded to by Pope .... [William S. Walsh, "Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities," 1892]
Nancy boy "effeminate male homosexual" is attested by 1958.
Star Chamber (n.): late 14c., apartment in the royal palace at Westminster in which members of the king's council sat to exercise jurisdiction 14-15c., it evolved 15c. into a court of criminal jurisdiction, infamous under James I and Charles I for arbitrary and oppressive proceedings. Abolished 1641. Supposedly so called because gilt stars had been painted on the ceiling. Later there was a star on the door.
rhyncholite: "A fossilized jaw (beak) of a cephalopod mollusc", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in William Buckland (1784–1856), geologist and dean of Westminster. From rhyncho- + -lite, after French rhyncolite.
motordrome: "A motor racing track", Early 20th cent.; earliest use found in The Westminster Gazette.
pogonotrophy: "The cultivation or growing of a beard", Mid 19th century; earliest use found in The Westminster Review. From Hellenistic Greek πωγωνοτροϕία (Plutarch) from ancient Greek πωγωνο-, combining form of πώγων beard + -τροϕία.
Pachydermata: "Originally, in Cuvier's system of classification: an order of mammals comprising elephants and related animals, and hoofed quadrupeds that do not chew the cud such as rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, pigs, horses, etc. (now historical ). In later use (treated as plural, in form pachydermata): animals belonging to this order; pachyderms", Early 19th century; earliest use found in William Buckland (1784–1856), geologist and dean of Westminster. From scientific Latin Pachydermata, order name from ancient Greek παχύδερμος thick-skinned (Aristotle), after French pachyderme.