英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

ditch [ditch 词源字典]: ditch: [OE] Like its close relative dyke [13], ditch probably comes ultimately from a long-lost language once spoken on the shores of the Baltic. Its source-word seems to have represented an all-embracing notion of ‘excavation’, including not just the hole dug but also the mound formed from the excavated earth (which perhaps supports the suggestion that dig belongs to the same word-family). This dichotomy of sense is preserved in dyke, whose original meaning, from Old Norse dík, was ‘ditch’, but which came in the 15th century to denote ‘embankment’ (probably under the influence of Middle Dutch dijc ‘dam’).
=> dig, dyke[ditch etymology, ditch origin, 英语词源]
fungus: fungus: [16] Fungus was introduced into English in the early 16th century as a learned and more all-embracing alternative to mushroom. It was borrowed from Latin fungus, which probably came from Greek sphóngos ‘sponge’, source of English sponge.
=> sponge
good: good: [OE] Good is such a general, all-embracing word for anything regarded in a positive light that it perhaps comes as something of a surprise that it is not an ancient primary term distributed throughout the Indo-European languages. It is a strictly Germanic word (German has gut, Dutch goed, and Swedish and Danish god), and it goes back to prehistoric Germanic *gath- ‘bring together’ (source of English gather and together); the progression of senses appears to be ‘brought together, united’, ‘fitting, suitable’, ‘pleasing’, and ‘good’. See also BEST.
=> gather, together
brace (v.): mid-14c., "to seize, grasp," also "wrap, enshroud; tie up, fetter," from Old French bracier "to embrace," from brace "arms" (see brace (n.)). Meaning "to render firm or steady by tensing" is mid-15c., earlier in figurative sense "strengthen or comfort" (someone), early 15c., with later extension to tonics, etc. that "brace" the nerves (compare bracer "stiff drink"). Related: Braced; bracing.
clipping (n.1): early 13c., "clasping, embracing," verbal noun from clip (v.2). As a U.S. football penalty (not in OED), from 1920.
Clipping or Cutting Down from Behind. -- This is to be ruled under unnecessary roughness, and penalized when it is practiced upon "a man obviously out of the play." This "clipping" is a tendency in the game that the committee is watching anxiously and with some fear. ["Colliers," April 10, 1920]
embrace (v.): mid-14c., "clasp in the arms," from Old French embracier (12c., Modern French embrasser) "clasp in the arms, enclose; covet, handle, cope with," from assimilated form of en- "in" (see en- (1)) + brace, braz "the arms," from Latin bracchium (neuter plural brachia); see brace (n.). Related: Embraced; embracing; embraceable. Replaced Old English clyppan (see clip (v.2)), also fæðm (see fathom (v.)). Sexual sense is from 1590s.
embrace (n.): "a hug," 1590s, from embrace (v.). Earlier noun was embracing (late 14c.). Middle English embrace (n.) meant "bribery."
expansive (adj.): 1650s, "tending to expand," from Latin expans-, past participle stem of expandere "to spread out" (see expand) + -ive. Meaning "embracing a large number of particulars, comprehensive" is by 1813. Related: Expansively; expansiveness.
hetaera (n.): 1820, "mistress," from Medieval Latin hetaera, from Greek hetaira "female companion," in Athens opposed to "lawful wife," and thus embracing everything from "concubine" to "courtesan;" fem. of hetairos "comrade, companion," from PIE *swet-aro-, suffixed form of root *s(w)e- (see idiom).
tilt (v.2): "to joust," 1590s, from tilt (n.1). Related: Tilted; tilting. The figurative sense of tilting at windmills is suggested in English by 1798; the image is from Don Quixote, who mistook them for giants.
So saying, and heartily recommending himself to his lady Dulcinea, whom he implored to succour him in this emergency, bracing on his target, and setting his lance in the rest, he put his Rozinante to full speed, and assaulting the nearest windmill, thrust it into one of the sails, which was drove about by the wind with so much fury, that the lance was shivered to pieces, and both knight and steed whirled aloft, and overthrown in very bad plight upon the plain. [Smollett translation, 1755]
wide (adj.): Old English wid "vast, broad, long," also used of time, from Proto-Germanic *widaz (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian wid, Old Norse viðr, Dutch wijd, Old High German wit, German weit), perhaps from PIE *wi-ito-, from root *wi- "apart, away, in half."

Meaning "distended, expanded, spread apart" is from c. 1500; sense of "embracing many subjects" is from 1530s; meaning "missing the intended target" is from 1580s. As a second element in compounds (such as nationwide, worldwide) meaning "extending through the whole of," is is from late Old English. As an adverb, Old English wide. Wide open "unguarded, exposed to attack" (1915) originally was in boxing, etc. Wide awake (adj.) is first recorded 1818; figurative sense of "alert, knowing" is attested from 1833.
amplexicaul: "(Of a leaf) embracing and surrounding the stem", Mid 18th century: from modern Latin amplexicaulis, from Latin amplexus 'embrace' + caulis 'stem'.