quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- horrible[horrible 词源字典]
- horrible: [14] The Latin verb horrēre was used for hair standing on end or bristling. A common cause of this phenomenon is of course fear, and so in due course horrēre came to mean ‘tremble, shake, be filled with fear and revulsion’. The latter sense has been carried through into English in the derivatives horrible, horrid [16], and horror [14]. (Horrid, incidentally, from Latin horridus, was originally used in English in the etymological sense ‘shaggy, hairy, bristling’ – ‘a rugged attire, hirsute head, horrid beard’, Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy 1621 – but this did not survive beyond the early 19th century.) The Old French descendant of horridus was ord ‘filthy’, from a derivative of which English gets ordure [14].
=> horrid, horror, ordure[horrible etymology, horrible origin, 英语词源] - bristle (v.)
- c. 1200 (implied in past participle adjective bristled) "set or covered with bristles," from bristle (n.). Meaning "become angry or excited" is 1540s, from the way animals show fight. Related: Bristling.
- horrid (adj.)
- early 15c., "hairy, shaggy, bristling," from Latin horridus "bristly, prickly, rough, horrid, frightful," from horrere "to bristle with fear, shudder" (see horror). Meaning "horrible, causing horror" is from c. 1600. Sense weakened 17c. to "unpleasant, offensive."
[W]hile both [horrible and horrid] are much used in the trivial sense of disagreeable, horrible is still quite common in the graver sense inspiring horror, which horrid tends to lose .... [Fowler]
Related: Horridly.