quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- bow[bow 词源字典]
- bow: There are three distinct words bow in English, although two of them, ‘arrow-shooter’ [OE] and ‘bend the body’ [OE], are ultimately related. Bow for arrows comes from Old English boga, which also meant more generally ‘arch’; its source was Germanic *bugon, a derivative of *bug-, the short stem of *beugan. This *beugan was also the source of Old English bōgan, antecedent of modern English bow ‘bend the body’, while the short stem lies additionally behind bright [OE] and bout [16]. Buxom, which originally meant ‘flexible’ and ‘obedient’, derived from bow ‘bend the body’.
The other bow ‘front of a boat’ [15] was probably borrowed from Dutch boeg, a word related to English bough.
=> bight, bout, buxom; bough[bow etymology, bow origin, 英语词源] - bulge
- bulge: [13] Etymologically, bulge and budget are the same word, and indeed when English first acquired bulge it was as a noun, with, like budget, the sense ‘pouch’. It came from Old French bouge ‘leather bag’, a descendant of Latin bulga, which may have been of Gaulish origin (medieval Irish bolg ‘bag’ has been compared). The word’s present-day connotations of ‘swelling’ and ‘protruding’ presumably go back to an early association of ‘pouches’ with ‘swelling up when filled’ (compare the case of bellows and belly, which originally meant ‘bag’, and came from a source which meant ‘swell’), but curiously, apart from an isolated instance around 1400 when bulge is used for a ‘hump on someone’s back’, there is no evidence for this meaning in English before the 17th century.
Additionally, from the 17th to the 19th centuries bulge was used for the ‘bottom of a ship’s hull’; it has now been superseded in this sense by bilge [15], which may well be a variant form.
=> bilge, budget - circus
- circus: [16] Latin circus meant literally ‘ring, circle’, but it was applied metaphorically by the Romans to the circular arena in which performances and contests were held. That was the original signification of the word in English, applied in a strictly antiquarian sense to the ancient world, and it was not until the late 18th century that it began to be used for any circular arena and the entertainment staged therein.
The Latin word is related to, and may have come from, Greek kírkos; and it is also connected with Latin curvus, source of English curve. It has additionally been linked with Latin corōna ‘circlet’, from which English gets crown. And it is of course, via its accusative form circum, the starting point of a wide range of English words with the prefix circum-, from circumference to circumvent (in this category is circuit [14], which goes back to an original Latin compound verb circumīre, literally ‘go round’).
=> circle, circuit, circulate, crown, curve, search - crone
- crone: [14] Crone has a rather macabre history. Essentially it is the same word as carrion. It began life in Latin carō ‘flesh’, which had a Vulgar Latin derivative *carōnia ‘carcass’. In Old Northern French this became carogne, which was applied metaphorically to a withered old woman (English carrion comes from the Anglo-Norman form caroine). Middle Dutch borrowed the word as croonje, applying it additionally to old ewes, and passed it on to English.
=> carrion - tenant
- tenant: [14] A tenant is etymologically a ‘holder’. The word comes from Old French tenant, a noun use of the present participle of tenir ‘hold’. This in turn went back to Latin tenēre ‘hold’, a descendant of the Indo-European base *ten- ‘stretch, extend’ (source also of English tend, tense, thin, etc). Also from Latin tenēre come English tenacious [16], tenement [14], tenet [17], and tenor, not to mention contain, continue, detain, maintain, obtain, retain, etc, while French tenir has additionally produced tenable [16], tenon [15], tenure [15], and probably tennis.
=> contain, continue, detain, maintain, obtain, retain, tenable, tenacious, tend, tenement, tenet, tennis, tenon, tenor, tense, tenure, thin - wine
- wine: [OE] Wine comes from Latin vīnum. This was borrowed into prehistoric Germanic as *wīnam, which subsequently evolved into German wein, Dutch wijn, Swedish and Danish vin, and English wine. It also gave French vin and Italian and Spanish vino, and was extensively acquired by other Indo-European languages, including Russian and Serbo-Croat vino, Polish wino, Lithuanian vynas, and Welsh gwin.
The Latin word itself came from an ancient Mediterranean source, possibly non- Indo-European, which also produced Greek oínos ‘wine’ (source of English oenology [19]), Albanian vēne ‘wine’, and Armenian gini ‘wine’. The same ancestral term also fed into the Semitic languages, giving Arabic wain, Hebrew yayin, and Assyrian īnn ‘wine’.
Latin vīnum additionally gave English vintage and vintner, and its derivative vīnea ‘vineyard, vine’ produced English vine [13].
=> oenology, vine, vintage, vintner - additional (adj.)
- 1640s, from addition + -al (1). Related: Additionally.
- kamikaze (n.)
- "suicide flier," 1945, Japanese, literally "divine wind," from kami "god, providence, divine" (see kami) + kaze "wind." Originally the name given in folklore to a typhoon which saved Japan from Mongol invasion by wrecking Kublai Khan's fleet (August 1281). The attacks began in October 1944 off the Philippines.
As an aside, at war's end, the Japanese had, by actual count, a total of 16,397 aircraft still available for service, including 6,374 operational fighters and bombers, and if they had used only the fighters and bombers for kamikaze missions, they might have realized, additionally, 900 ships sunk or damaged and 22,000 sailors killed or injured. In fact, however, the Japanese had outfitted many aircraft, including trainers, as potential suicide attackers. As intelligence estimates indicated, the Japanese believed they could inflict at least 50,000 casualties to an invasion force by kamikaze attacks alone. [Richard P. Hallion, "Military Technology and the Pacific War," 1995]
As an adjective by 1946. - supererogation (n.)
- 1520s, "performance of more than duty requires," in Catholic theology, from Late Latin supererogationem (nominative supererogatio) "a payment in addition," noun of action from past participle stem of supererogare "pay or do additionally," from Latin super "above, over" (see super-) + erogare "pay out," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + rogare "ask, request" (see rogation).
- supererogatory (adj.)
- 1590s, from Medieval Latin supererogatorius, from supererogat-, stem of supererogare "pay or do additionally" (see supererogation).