英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

donkey [donkey 词源字典]: donkey: [18] The usual English word for ‘donkey’ from Anglo-Saxon times was ass, and donkey is not recorded until Francis Grose entered it in his Dictionary of the vulgar tonge 1785; ‘Donkey or Donkey Dick, a he or Jackass’. No one really knows where it came from. The usual explanation offered is that it was based on dun ‘brownish grey’ and the diminutive suffix -ey, with the intermediate k added in imitation of monkey (donkey originally rhymed with monkey).
=> dun[donkey etymology, donkey origin, 英语词源]
maroon: maroon: English has two distinct and completely unrelated words maroon. The one denoting ‘brownish red’ and ‘firework’ [16] has had a chequered semantic history, as its present-day diversity of meanings suggests. It comes ultimately from medieval Greek máraon ‘sweet chestnut’, and reached English via Italian marrone and French marron (as in marrons glacés).

It was originally used for ‘chestnut’ in English too, but that sense died out in the early 18th century, leaving behind the colour term (an allusion to the reddish brown of the chestnut’s inner shell) and ‘firework, exploding projectile’ (perhaps a reference to the shape of such devices). Maroon ‘abandon’ [17] comes from the noun maroon. This originally meant ‘runaway slave’, and comes via French from American Spanish cimarron.

The most widely accepted derivation of this is that it was based on Spanish cima ‘summit’, a descendant of Latin cyma ‘sprout’, and that it thus denotes etymologically ‘one who lives on the mountain tops’.
beige (n.): 1858, "fine woolen fabric," from dialectal French beige "yellowish-gray, brownish-gray," from Old French bege "the natural color of wool and cotton; raw, not dyed" (13c.), of obscure origin. "Das Wort lebt namentlich in der Bourgogne und Fr. Comté, daneben aber auch im Südwesten" [Gamillscheg]. As a shade of color, it is attested from 1879. As an adjective by 1879.
bice (n.): "pale blue color," early 15c., shortened from blew bis "blue bice," from French bis "swarthy, brownish-gray" (12c.), cognate with Italian bigio; of unknown origin. Via French combinations azur bis, vert bis the word came into English with a sense of "blue" or "green."
brunette (adj.): 1660s, from French brunette (masc. brunet), from Old French brunet "brownish, brown-haired, dark-complexioned," fem. diminutive of brun "brown" (12c.), of West Germanic origin (see brown (adj.)). As a noun, "woman of a dark complexion," from 1710. The metathesized form, Old French burnete, is the source of the surname Burnett. Burnete also was used of a wool-dyed cloth of superior quality, originally dark brown.
butternut (n.): also butter-nut, 1753, nut of the white walnut, a North American tree; transferred to the tree itself from 1783. The nut's color was a brownish-gray, hence the word was used (1861) to describe the warm gray color of the Southern army uniforms in the American Civil War.
dun (adj.): Old English dunn "dingy brown, dark-colored," perhaps from Celtic (compare Old Irish donn "dark;" Gaelic donn "brown, dark;" Welsh dwnn "brownish"), from PIE *donnos, *dusnos "dark."
fallow (adj.): "pale yellow, brownish yellow," Old English fealu "reddish yellow, yellowish-brown, tawny, dusk-colored" (of flame, birds' feet, a horse, withered grass or leaves, waters, roads), from Proto-Germanic *falwa- (cognates: Old Saxon falu, Old Norse fölr, Middle Dutch valu, Dutch vaal, Old High German falo, German falb), from PIE *pal-wo- "dark-colored, gray" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic plavu, Lithuanian palvas "sallow;" Greek polios "gray" (of hair, wolves, waves), Sanskrit palitah, Welsh llwyd "gray;" Latin pallere "to be pale"), suffixed form of root *pel- (2) "pale" (see pallor). It also forms the root of words for "pigeon" in Greek (peleia), Latin (palumbes), and Old Prussian (poalis). Related: Fallow-deer.
Fauvist: movement in painting associated with Henri Matisse, 1915, from French fauve, "wild beast," a term applied in contempt to these painters by French art critic Louis Vauxcelles at Autumn Salon of 1905. The movement was a reaction against impressionism, featuring vivid use of colors. French fauve (12c.) in Old French meant "fawn-colored horse, dark-colored thing, dull," and is from Frankish *falw- or some other Germanic source, cognate with German falb "dun, pale yellowish-brown" and English fallow "brownish-yellow." Related: Fauvism (1912).
ochre (n.): type of clayey soil (much used in pigments), late 14c., from Old French ocre (c. 1300) and directly from Late Latin ocra, from Latin ochra, from Greek ochra, from ochros "pale yellow," of unknown origin. As a color name, "brownish-yellow," it is attested from mid-15c. Related: Ochreous.
puce (n.): "brownish-purple," 1787, from French puce "flea-color; flea," from Latin pucilem (nominative pulex) "flea," from PIE *plou- "flea" (cognates: Sanskrit plusih, Greek psylla, Old Church Slavonic blucha, Lithuanian blusa, Armenian lu "flea"). That it could be generally recognized as a color seems a testimony to our ancestors' intimacy with vermin.
rust (n.): "red oxide of iron," Old English rust "rust; moral canker," related to rudu "redness," from Proto-Germanic *rusta- (cognates: Frisian rust, Old High German and German rost, Middle Dutch ro(e)st), from PIE *reudh-s-to- (cognates: Lithuanian rustas "brownish," rudeti "to rust;" Latin robigo, Old Church Slavonic ruzda "rust"), from root *reudh- "red" (see red (adj.1)).

As a plant disease, attested from mid-14c. Rust Belt "decayed urban industrial areas of mid-central U.S." (1984) was popularized, if not coined, by Walter Mondale's presidential campaign.
Sienna: city in central Italy, probably from Senones, the name of a Gaulish people who settled there in ancient times. Related: Sienese. The brownish-ochre color (1760) is from Italian terra di Sienna "earth of Siena," where the coloring material first was produced.
sparrow (n.): small brownish-gray bird (Passer domesticus), Old English spearwa, from Proto-Germanic *sparwan (cognates: Old Norse spörr, Old High German sparo, German Sperling, Gothic sparwa), from PIE *spor-wo-, from root *sper- (3), forming names of small birds (cognates: Cornish frau "crow;" Old Prussian spurglis "sparrow;" Greek spergoulos "small field bird," psar "starling"). In use, with qualifying words, of many small, sparrow-like birds. Sparrowfarts (1886) was Cheshire slang for "very early morning."
subfusc (adj.): "moderately dark, brownish," 1710, from Latin subfuscus, variant of suffuscus, from sub- (see sub-) + fuscus "dark, dusky" (see obfuscate). Related: Subfuscous "dusky."
tan (n.): "bronze color imparted to skin by exposure to sun," 1749, see tan (v.). Earlier as "substance made of crushed bark used in making leather" (c. 1600). As a simple name for a brownish color, in any context, it is recorded from 1888. The adjective meaning "of the color of tanned leather" is recorded from 1660s. Tan-line attested from 1979.
taupe (n.): "dark brownish-gray color" (the color of moleskin), 1906, from French taupe, the color, originally "a mole," Old French, from Latin talpa "a mole." The story below lacks evidence appears to be a fanciful attempt to divert the origin of the color name to something more appealing:
Before the season advances very far you will find that taupe, pronounced "tope," will be the most favored color in the entire category of shades and blendings. The original word is taken from the German word "taube" pronounced "tob-a," which is the name for the dove, but the French have twisted the b into a p and give us taupe. ["The Illustrated Milliner," August, 1906]
tawny (adj.): "tan-colored," late 14c., from Anglo-French tauné "of or like the brownish-yellow of tanned leather," from Old French tanét "dark brown, tan" (12c., Modern French tanné), past participle of taner "to tan hides," from Medieval Latin tannare (see tan (v.)).Related: Tawniness.
terra-cotta (n.): 1722, from Italian terra cotta, literally "cooked earth," from terra "earth" (see terrain) + cotta "baked," from Latin cocta, fem. past participle of coquere (see cook (n.)). As a color name for brownish-red, attested from 1882.
chrysolite: "A yellowish-green or brownish variety of olivine, used as a gemstone", Late Middle English: from Old French crisolite, from medieval Latin crisolitus, from Latin chrysolithus, based on Greek khrusos 'gold' + lithos 'stone'.
microlite: " Mineralogy . Any of a subgroup of minerals of the pyrochlore group, found in various pegmatites, that are complex oxides of tantalum and niobium with sodium and calcium, often with small amounts of other elements such as uranium and titanium, crystallizing in the cubic system as yellow, brownish, or blackish translucent crystals", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Charles Shepard (1804–1886). From micro- + -lite. In sense 1 so named from the smallness of the crystals in which it was first found.
terracotta: "A type of fired clay, typically of a brownish-red colour and unglazed, used as an ornamental building material and in modelling", Early 18th century: from Italian terra cotta 'baked earth', from Latin terra cocta.
phlobaphene: "Any of a class of reddish or brownish water-insoluble pigments which occur in various barks and other plant tissues, and are polymeric derivatives of tannins", Mid 19th cent.; earliest use found in Henry Watts (1815–1884), chemist. From German Phlobaphen from ancient Greek ϕλοιός bark + βαϕή dye + German -en.