英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

gravel [gravel 词源字典]: gravel: [13] Gravel is of Celtic origin. It has been traced to a prehistoric Celtic *gravo- ‘gravel’, never actually recorded but deduced from Breton grouan and Cornish grow ‘soft granite’. French borrowed it as grave ‘gravel, pebbles’ (perhaps the source of the English verb grave ‘clean a ship’s bottom’ [15], now encountered virtually only in graving dock, from the notion of ships being hauled up on to the pebbles of the seashore for cleaning). The Old French diminutive of grave was gravelle – whence English gravel.
[gravel etymology, gravel origin, 英语词源]
preen: preen: [14] Preen is generally taken to be an alteration of prune ‘cut branches’, under the influence of another now obsolete verb preen ‘pierce’, a descendant of the Old English noun prēon ‘pin’ (the notion presumably being of a bird ‘piercing’ its feathers with its beak when cleaning them).
=> prune
scour: scour: [13] The notion of ‘cleaning’ implicit in scour evolved from an earlier ‘take care of’. For the word goes back ultimately to Latin cūrāre (source of English cure), which originally meant ‘take care of’, and only in medieval times came to mean ‘clean’. Combination with the prefix ex- ‘out’ produced excūrāre ‘clean out’, which reached English via Old French escurer and Middle Dutch scūren. Scour ‘search thoroughly’ [14] (as in ‘scour the countryside’) is a different word, and may come from Old Norse skýra ‘rush in’.
=> cure
bach (n.): 1845, American English, clipped form of bachelor (n.). Also in colloquial American English use as a verb (1870) meaning "to live as an unmarried man," especially "to do one's own cooking and cleaning." Related: Bached; baching.
cat (n.): Old English catt (c. 700), from West Germanic (c. 400-450), from Proto-Germanic *kattuz (cognates: Old Frisian katte, Old Norse köttr, Dutch kat, Old High German kazza, German Katze), from Late Latin cattus.

The near-universal European word now, it appeared in Europe as Latin catta (Martial, c. 75 C.E.), Byzantine Greek katta (c. 350) and was in general use on the continent by c. 700, replacing Latin feles. Probably ultimately Afro-Asiatic (compare Nubian kadis, Berber kadiska, both meaning "cat"). Arabic qitt "tomcat" may be from the same source. Cats were domestic in Egypt from c. 2000 B.C.E., but not a familiar household animal to classical Greeks and Romans. The nine lives have been proverbial since at least 1560s.

The Late Latin word also is the source of Old Irish and Gaelic cat, Welsh kath, Breton kaz, Italian gatto, Spanish gato, French chat (12c.). Independent, but ultimately from the same source are words in the Slavic group: Old Church Slavonic kotuka, kotel'a, Bulgarian kotka, Russian koška, Polish kot, along with Lithuanian kate and non-Indo-European Finnish katti, which is from Lithuanian.

Extended to lions, tigers, etc. c. 1600. As a term of contempt for a woman, from early 13c. Slang sense of "prostitute" is from at least c. 1400. Slang sense of "fellow, guy," is from 1920, originally in U.S. Black English; narrower sense of "jazz enthusiast" is recorded from 1931.

Cat's paw (1769, but cat's foot in the same sense, 1590s) refers to old folk tale in which the monkey tricks the cat into pawing chestnuts from a fire; the monkey gets the nuts, the cat gets a burnt paw. Cat bath "hurried or partial cleaning" is from 1953. Cat burglar is from 1907, so called for stealth. Cat-witted "small-minded, obstinate, and spiteful" (1670s) deserved to survive. For Cat's meow, cat's pajamas, see bee's knees.
clean (v.): mid-15c., "make clean," from clean (adj.). Related: Cleaned; cleaning. From clean out "clean by emptying" comes sense of "to leave bare" (1844); cleaned-out "left penniless by losses" is from 1812.
clean-up (n.): also cleanup, 1856, "act of cleaning up," from clean + up. Meaning "a profit" is recorded from 1878. Verbal phrase clean up "make a large profit" is from 1929. The adjective, in the baseball sense, is recorded by 1910.
kipper (n.): Old English cypera "male salmon," perhaps related to coper "reddish-brown metal" (see copper), on resemblance of color. Another theory connects it to kip, name for the sharp, hooked lower jaw of the male salmon in breeding season, from Middle English kippen "to snatch, tug, pull." The modern word usually refers to kippered herring, from a verb meaning "to cure a fish by cleaning, salting, and spicing it" (early 14c.). The theory is that this originally was done to salmon, hence the name.
mop (n.): late 15c., mappe "bundle of yarn, etc., fastened to the end of a stick for cleaning or spreading pitch on a ship's decks," from Walloon (French) mappe "napkin," from Latin mappa "napkin" (see map (n.)). Modern spelling by 1660s. Of hair, from 1847. Grose ["Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," Grose, 1788] has mopsqueezer "A maid servant, particularly a housemaid."
rhinestone (n.): colorless imitation stone of paste or leaded glass, 1879, a loan-translation of French caillou du Rhin "Rhine pebble," so called because they were made near Strasburg, on the River Rhine, and invented there late 17c. Extensively worn later 18c.
Rhinestone jewelry, a reproduction of the ornaments of the Louis XV. period, is all the rage in Paris. The Rhinestones are as brilliant as diamonds, and being set in silver, will stand any amount of wear or of cleaning. ["The American Stationer," March 20, 1879]
scrub (v.): "rub hard," early 15c., earlier shrubben (c. 1300), perhaps from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German schrubben "to scrub," or from an unrecorded Old English cognate, or from a Scandinavian source (such as Danish skrubbe "to scrub"), probably ultimately from the Proto-Germanic root of shrub, used as a cleaning tool (compare the evolution of broom, brush (n.1)).

Meaning "to cancel" is attested from 1828 (popularized during World War II with reference to flights), probably from notion of "to rub out, erase" an entry on a listing. Related: Scrubbed; scrubbing.
soapstone (n.): type of talc, 1680s, from soap (n.) + stone (n.). So called because it is occasionally used for cleaning.
spring (n.1): season following winter, the vernal season, c. 1400, earlier springing time (late 14c.), which replaced Lent, the Old English word. From spring (v.); also see spring (n.3). The notion is of the "spring of the year," when plants begin to rise (as in spring of the leaf, 1520s), from the noun in its old sense of "action or time of rising or springing into existence." It was used of sunrise, the waxing of the moon, rising tides, etc.; compare 14c. spring of dai "sunrise," spring of mone "moonrise," late Old English spring "carbuncle, pustule."

Other Germanic languages tend to take words for "fore" or "early" as their roots for the season name (Danish voraar, Dutch voorjaar, literally "fore-year;" German Frühling, from Middle High German vrueje "early"). In 15c. English, the season also was prime-temps, after Old French prin tans, tamps prim (French printemps, which replaced primevère 16c. as the common word for spring), from Latin tempus primum, literally "first time, first season."

Spring fever is from 1843 as "surge of romantic feelings;" earlier of a type of disease or head-cold prevalent in certain places in spring; Old English had lenctenadle. First record of spring cleaning in the domestic sense is by 1843 (in ancient Persia, the first month, corresponding to March-April, was Adukanaiša, which apparently means "Irrigation-Canal-Cleaning Month;" Kent, p.167). Spring chicken "small roasting chicken" (usually 11 to 14 weeks) is recorded from 1780; transferred sense of "young person" first recorded 1906. Baseball spring training attested by 1889, earlier of militias, etc.
superior (adj.): late 14c., "higher in position," from Old French superior "higher, upper" (Modern French superieur), from Latin superiorem (nominative superior) "higher," comparative of superus "situated above, upper," from super "above, over" (see super-).

Meaning "higher in rank or dignity" is attested from late 15c.; sense of "of a higher nature or character" is attested from 1530s. Original sense was preserved more strongly in French (as in les étages supérieur "the upper stories"), and in Lake Superior, a loan-translation of French Lac Supérieur, literally "upper lake" (at 600 feet above sea-level it has the highest surface elevation of the five Great Lakes and is the furthest north).
Surprise a person of the class that is supposed to keep servants cleaning his own boots, & either he will go on with the job while he talks to you, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, or else he will explain that the bootboy or scullery-maid is ill & give you to understand that he is, despite appearances, superior to boot-cleaning. If he takes the second course, you conclude that he is not superior to it; if the first, that perhaps he is. [Fowler]
swab (n.): 1650s, "mop made of rope or yarn," from swabber (c. 1600) "mop for cleaning a ship's deck," from Dutch zwabber, akin to West Frisian swabber "mop," from Proto-Germanic *swabb-, perhaps of imitative origin, denoting back-and-forth motion, especially in liquid.

Non-nautical meaning "anything used for mopping up" is from 1787; as "cloth or sponge on a handle to cleanse the mouth, etc.," from 1854. Slang meaning "a sailor" first attested 1798, short for swabber "member of a ship's crew assigned to swab decks" (1590s), which by c. 1600 was being used in a broader sense of "one who behaves like a low-ranking sailor, one fit only to use a swab."
ta-ta: also tata, "good-bye," familiar salutation in parting, 1823, a word first recorded as infant's speech. Abbreviation T.T.F.N., "ta-ta for now," popularized 1941 by BBC radio program "ITMA," where it was the characteristic parting of the cockney cleaning woman character Mrs. Mopp, voiced by Dorothy Summers.
torch (n.): mid-13c., from Old French torche "torch," also "handful of straw" (for wiping or cleaning, hence French torcher "to wipe, wipe down"), originally "twisted thing," then "torch formed of twisted tow dipped in wax," probably from Vulgar Latin *torca, alteration of Late Latin torqua, from Latin torquere "to twist" (see torque (n.)).

In Britain, also applied to the battery-driven version (in U.S., a flashlight). To pass the torch is an ancient metaphor from the Greek torch-races (lampadedromia) where the goal was to reach the finish line with the torch still burning. Torch-bearer "leader of a cause" is from 1530s. Torch song is 1927 ("My Melancholy Baby," performed by Tommy Lyman, is said to have been the first so called), from carry a torch "suffer an unrequited love" (also 1927), Broadway slang, but the sense is obscure.
ventilate (v.): early 15c., "to scatter, disperse (as the wind does)," from Latin ventilatus, past participle of ventilare "to brandish, toss in the air, winnow, fan, agitate, set in motion," from ventulus "a breeze," diminutive of ventus "wind" (see wind (n.1)). Original notion is of cleaning grain by tossing it in the air and letting the wind blow away the chaff. Meaning "supply a room with fresh air" first recorded 1743 (see ventilation). Formerly with diverse slang senses, including "shoot" (someone), recorded from 1875. Related: Ventilated; ventilating.
washboard (n.): also wash-board, clothes-cleaning device, 1882, from wash (v.) + board (n.1). As a percussion instrument, attested from 1925; in reference to abdominal muscles, recorded from 1950 in boxing jargon.
wisp (n.): early 14c., "handful or bundle of hay, grass, etc.," used for burning or cleaning or as a cushion; perhaps from an unrecorded Old English word, cognate with Norwegian and Swedish visp "wisp," of unknown origin; sometimes said to be connected with whisk or with Middle Low German and Middle Dutch wispel "a measure of grain." Meaning "thin, filmy portion" first attested 1836.
J-cloth: "A type of cloth used for household cleaning", 1970s: J from Johnson and Johnson, the original makers.