英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

cement [cement 词源字典]: cement: [13] Latin caementa meant ‘stone chips used for making mortar’; etymologically, the notion behind it was of ‘hewing for a quarry’, for it was originally *caedmenta, a derivative of caedere ‘cut’ (from which English gets concise and decide). In due course the signification of the Latin word passed from ‘small broken stones’ to ‘powdered stone (used for mortar)’, and it was in this sense that it passed via Old French ciment into English.
=> concise, decide[cement etymology, cement origin, 英语词源]
spoon: spoon: [OE] The word spoon originally denoted ‘chip of wood’. Such chips typically being slightly concave, they could be used for conveying liquid, and by the 14th century spoon, through Scandinavian influence, was being used in its present-day sense. It goes back ultimately to the same prehistoric base as produced English spade, and its Old Norse relative spánn ‘chip’ lies behind the span of spick and span. The late 19th-century slang use ‘court, make love, bill and coo’ comes from a late 18th-century application of the noun to a ‘shallow’ or foolish person.
=> spade
bort (n.): "waste diamonds, small chips from diamond-cutting," of unknown origin, perhaps related to Old French bort "bastard."
cement (n.): c. 1300, from Old French ciment "cement, mortar, pitch," from Latin cæmenta "stone chips used for making mortar" (singular caementum), from caedere "to cut down, chop, beat, hew, fell, slay" (see -cide). The sense evolution from "small broken stones" to "powdered stones used in construction" took place before the word reached English.
chip (n.1): Old English cipp "piece of wood," perhaps from PIE root *keipo- "sharp post" (cognates: Dutch kip "small strip of wood," Old High German kipfa "wagon pole," Old Norse keppr "stick," Latin cippus "post, stake, beam;" the Germanic words perhaps borrowed from Latin).

Meaning "counter used in a game of chance" is first recorded 1840; electronics sense is from 1962. Used for thin slices of foodstuffs (originally fruit) since 1769; specific reference to potatoes is found by 1859 (in "A Tale of Two Cities"); potato chip is attested by 1879. Meaning "piece of dried dung" first attested 1846, American English.

Chip of the old block is used by Milton (1642); earlier form was chip of the same block (1620s); more common modern phrase with off in place of of is early 20c. To have a chip on one's shoulder is 1830, American English, from the custom of a boy determined to fight putting a wood chip on his shoulder and defying another to knock it off. When the chips are down (1940s) is from the chips being down on the table after the final bets are made in a poker match.
crisp (adj.): Old English crisp "curly," from Latin crispus "curled, wrinkled, having curly hair," from PIE root *(s)ker- (3) "to turn, bend" (see ring (n.)). It began to mean "brittle" 1520s, for obscure reasons, perhaps based on what happens to flat things when they are cooked. Figurative sense of "neat, brisk" is from 1814; perhaps a separate word. As a noun, from late 14c. Potato crisps (the British version of U.S. potato chips) is from 1929.
fish (n.): Old English fisc "fish," from Proto-Germanic *fiskaz (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German fisc, Old Norse fiskr, Middle Dutch visc, Dutch vis, German Fisch, Gothic fisks), from PIE *peisk- "fish" (cognates: Latin piscis, Irish iasc, and, via Latin, Italian pesce, French poisson, Spanish pez, Welsh pysgodyn, Breton pesk).

Popularly, since Old English, "any animal that lives entirely in the water," hence shellfish, starfish (an early 15c. manuscript has fishes bestiales for "water animals other than fishes"). The plural is fishes, but in a collective sense, or in reference to fish meat as food, the singular fish generally serves for a plural. In reference to the constellation Pisces from late 14c. Fish (n.) for "person" is from 1750 in the faintly dismissive sense; earlier it was used in reference to a person considered desirable to 'catch' (1722). Figurative sense of fish out of water first recorded 1610s. To drink like a fish is from 1744. To have other fish to fry "other objects which invite or require attention" is from 1650s.

Fish-story attested from 1819, from the tendency to exaggerate the size of the catch (or the one that got away). Fish-eye as a type of lens is from 1961. Fish-and-chips is from 1876; fish-fingers from 1962. Fish-food is from 1936 as "food for (pet or hobby) fish."
particle (n.): late 14c., "small part or division of a whole, minute portion of matter," from Latin particula "little bit or part, grain, jot," diminutive of pars (genitive partis) "part;" see part (n.). Particle physics attested from 1969. In construction, particle board (1957) is so called because it is made from chips and shavings of wood.
silicon (n.): nonmetallic element, 1817, coined by British chemist Thomas Thomson from silica (silicon dioxide), from which it was isolated. The name is patterned on carbon, etc. Silicon chip first attested 1965; Silicon Valley for the Santa Clara Valley south of San Francisco, U.S., first attested 1974, from the concentration of manufacturers of silicon chips used in computers, watches, etc.
stack (v.): early 14c., "to pile up (grain) into a stack," from stack (n.). Meaning "arrange (a deck of cards) unfairly" (in stack the deck) is first recorded 1825. Stack up "compare against" is 1903, from notion of piles of poker chips (1896). Of aircraft waiting to land, from 1941. Related: Stacked; Stacking.
uppercut (n.): in pugilism, a close-in strike upward with the fist, 1831, from upper + cut (n.). Perhaps the image is of chopping a tree by making cuts up (as well as down) in the trunk.
It was on a side hill, and I observed a boy, who appeared to be about fifteen years of age, opposite the house felling a large tree; he had cut a few chips from the under side, and was then making the principal incision on the upper. ... I said to the boy, "Well Sir, I see that you make the upper cut." "That is the true cut," said the boy; "for if you will take the axe and try below, you will find that the tree will crowd down upon your chips, and you can't get it down in double the time." [Theodore Sedgwick, "Hints to My Countrymen," 1826]
poutine: "A dish of potato chips topped with cheese curds and gravy", 1980s: Canadian French, either from French pouding 'pudding' or directly from pudding.
bilberry: "A small dark blue edible berry", Late 16th century: probably of Scandinavian origin; compare with Danish bøllebær. More blue from Middle English:The English blue and French bleu are ultimately the same word, which goes back to ancient Germanic and is related to the blae- in blaeberry (Middle English), a Scottish and northern English name for the bilberry (late 16th century). Blue occurs in a number of phrases, in particular those relating either to depression and melancholy or to the blue of the sky, as in out of the blue, ‘as a total surprise’. See also bolt. Something occurring once in a blue moon is something very rare. A blue moon sounds fanciful but it is a phenomenon that does occur occasionally, due to large amounts of dust or smoke in the atmosphere. A particularly Australian use of blue is as a humorous nickname for a red-haired person. This is first recorded in 1932, although bluey is earlier, from 1906.Depression or melancholy have always been around, but no one called these feelings the blues until the mid 18th century, although people have been feeling blue since as early as the 1580s. The blues was a contraction of blue devils, which were originally baleful demons punishing sinners. In the 18th century people fancifully imagined them to be behind depression, and later also to be the apparitions seen by alcoholics in delirium tremens. The first printed record of the name of the melancholic music style is in the ‘Memphis Blues’ of 1912, by the American musician W. C. Handy, who later set up his own music-publishing house and transcribed many traditional blues. Its later development, rhythm and blues, appeared in the 1930s.Obscene or smutty material has been known as blue since the mid 19th century. The link may be the blue gowns that prostitutes used to wear in prison, or the blue pencil traditionally used by censors.Blue-chip shares are considered to be a reliable investment, though less secure than gilt-edged stock (used since the later 19th century for government stock, and earlier to suggest excellent quality). Blue chips are high-value counters used in the game of poker. In America a blue-collar worker (mid 20th century) is someone who works in a manual trade, especially in industry, as opposed to a white-collar worker (early 20th century) in the cleaner environment of an office. A blueprint (late 19th century) gets its name from a process in which prints were composed of white lines on a blue ground or of blue lines on a white ground. See also murder