英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

charm [charm 词源字典]: charm: [13] Although now largely weakened to mere ‘attractiveness’, the origins of charm are in magic spells and incantations. It comes via Old French charme from Latin carmen ‘song’, which was also used for the chanting or reciting of verses with supposedly magic powers. Thus in the Middle Ages, charms were synonymous with enchantment – either spoken or, in more concrete form, carried as talismans. The latter have degenerated in modern times to small trinkets worn on bracelets, an application first recorded in the mid 19th century.
[charm etymology, charm origin, 英语词源]
glamour: glamour: [18] Unlikely as it may seem, glamour is ultimately the same word as grammar. This seems to have been used in the Middle Ages for ‘learning’ in general, and hence, by superstitious association, for ‘magic’ (there is no actual record of this, but the related gramarye was employed in that sense). Scottish English had the form glamour for grammar (l is phonetically close to r, and the two are liable to change places), used for ‘enchantment’, or a ‘spell’, for whose introduction to general English Sir Walter Scott was largely responsible.

The literal sense ‘enchanted’ has now slipped into disuse, gradually replaced since the early 19th century by ‘delusive charm’, and latterly ‘fashionable attractiveness’.
=> grammar
attractive (adj.): late 14c., "absorptive," from Middle French attractif (14c.), from attract-, past participle stem of attrahere (see attract). Meaning "having the quality of drawing people's eye or interest" is from 1580s; sense of "pleasing, alluring" is from c. 1600. Related: Attractively; attractiveness.
beauty (n.): early 14c., "physical attractiveness," also "goodness, courtesy," from Anglo-French beute, Old French biauté "beauty, seductiveness, beautiful person" (12c., Modern French beauté), earlier beltet, from Vulgar Latin bellitatem (nominative bellitas) "state of being handsome," from Latin bellus "pretty, handsome, charming," in classical Latin used especially of women and children, or ironically or insultingly of men, perhaps from PIE *dw-en-elo-, diminutive of root *deu- (2) "to do, perform; show favor, revere" (see bene-). Famously defined by Stendhal as la promesse de bonheur "the promise of happiness."
[I]t takes the one hundred men in ten million who understand beauty, which isn't imitation or an improvement on the beautiful as already understood by the common herd, twenty or thirty years to convince the twenty thousand next most sensitive souls after their own that this new beauty is truly beautiful. [Stendhal, "Life of Henry Brulard"]
Replaced Old English wlite. Concrete meaning "a beautiful woman" is first recorded late 14c. Beauty sleep "sleep before midnight" is attested by 1850. Beauty spot is from 1650s. Beauty parlor is from 1894.
The sudden death of a young woman a little over a week ago in a down-town "beauty parlor" has served to direct public attention to those institutions and their methods. In this case, it seems, the operator painted on or injected into the patron's facial blemish a 4-per-cent cocaine solution and then applied an electrode, the sponge of which was saturated with carbolized water. ["The Western Druggist," October 1894]
Beauté du diable (literally "devil's beauty") is used as a French phrase in English from 1825.
favor (n.): c. 1300, "attractiveness, beauty, charm" (archaic), from Old French favor "a favor; approval, praise; applause; partiality" (13c., Modern French faveur), from Latin favorem (nominative favor) "good will, inclination, partiality, support," coined by Cicero from stem of favere "to show kindness to," from PIE *ghow-e- "to honor, revere, worship" (cognate: Old Norse ga "to heed").

Meaning "good will, kind regard" is from mid-14c. in English; sense of "act of kindness, a kindness done" is from late 14c. Meaning "bias, partiality" is from late 14c. Meaning "thing given as a mark of favor" is from late 15c. Phrase in favor of recorded from 1560s.
girl (n.): c. 1300, gyrle "child, young person" (of either sex but most frequently of females), of unknown origin. One guess [OED] leans toward an unrecorded Old English *gyrele, from Proto-Germanic *gurwilon-, diminutive of *gurwjoz (apparently also represented by Low German gære "boy, girl," Norwegian dialectal gorre, Swedish dialectal gurre "small child," though the exact relationship, if any, between all these is obscure), from PIE *ghwrgh-, also found in Greek parthenos "virgin." But this involves some objectionable philology. Liberman (2008) writes:
Girl does not go back to any Old English or Old Germanic form. It is part of a large group of Germanic words whose root begins with a g or k and ends in r. The final consonant in girl is a diminutive suffix. The g-r words denote young animals, children, and all kinds of creatures considered immature, worthless, or past their prime.
Another candidate is Old English gierela "garment" (for possible sense evolution in this theory, compare brat). A former folk-etymology derivation from Latin garrulus "chattering, talkative" is now discarded. Like boy, lass, lad it is of more or less obscure origin. "Probably most of them arose as jocular transferred uses of words that had originally different meaning" [OED]. Specific meaning of "female child" is late 14c. Applied to "any young unmarried woman" since mid-15c. Meaning "sweetheart" is from 1640s. Old girl in reference to a woman of any age is recorded from 1826. Girl next door as a type of unflashy attractiveness is recorded by 1953.
Doris [Day] was a big vocalist even before she hit the movies in 1948. There, as the latest movie colony "girl next door," sunny-faced Doris soon became a leading movie attraction as well as the world's top female recording star. "She's the girl next door, all right," said one Hollywood admirer. "Next door to the bank." ["Life" magazine, Dec. 22, 1958]
Girl Friday "resourceful young woman assistant" is from 1940, a reference to "Robinson Crusoe." Girl Scout is from 1909. For the usual Old English word, see maiden.
glamour (n.): 1720, Scottish, "magic, enchantment" (especially in phrase to cast the glamor), a variant of Scottish gramarye "magic, enchantment, spell," said to be an alteration of English grammar (q.v.) in a specialized use of that word's medieval sense of "any sort of scholarship, especially occult learning," the latter sense attested from c. 1500 in English but said to have been more common in Medieval Latin. Popularized in English by the writings of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Sense of "magical beauty, alluring charm" first recorded 1840. As that quality of attractiveness especially associated with Hollywood, high-fashion, celebrity, etc., by 1939.

Jamieson's 1825 supplement to his "Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language" has glamour-gift "the power of enchantment; metaph. applied to female fascination." Jamieson's original edition (1808) looked to Old Norse for the source of the word. Zoëga's Old Icelandic dictionary has glám-sýni "illusion," probably from the same root as gleam.
graciousness (n.): late 14c., "attractiveness, agreeable quality," early 15c., from gracious + -ness. From 1630s as "courtesy, politeness."
oomph: "sexual attractiveness," 1937, suggestive visceral physical sound. Ann Sheridan (1915â1967) was the original Hollywood oomph girl (1939).
pulchritude (n.): "beauty," c. 1400, from Latin pulchritudo "beauty; excellence, attractiveness," from pulcher "beautiful," of unknown origin.
unattractive (adj.): 1729, from un- (1) "not" + attractive. Related: Unattractively; unattractiveness.