英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

adultery [adultery 词源字典]: adultery: [14] Neither adultery nor the related adulterate have any connection with adult. Both come ultimately from the Latin verb adulterāre ‘debauch, corrupt’ (which may have been based on Latin alter ‘other’, with the notion of pollution from some extraneous source). By the regular processes of phonetic change, adulterāre passed into Old French as avoutrer, and this was the form which first reached English, as avouter (used both verbally, ‘commit adultery’, and nominally, ‘adulterer’) and as the nouns avoutery ‘adultery’ and avouterer ‘adulterer’.

Almost from the first they coexisted in English beside adult- forms, deriving either from Law French or directly from Latin, and during the 15th to 17th centuries these gradually ousted the avout- forms. Adulter, the equivalent of avouter, clung on until the end of the 18th century, but the noun was superseded in the end by adulterer and the verb by a new form, adulterate, directly based on the past participle of Latin adulterāre, which continued to mean ‘commit adultery’ until the mid 19th century.
=> alter[adultery etymology, adultery origin, 英语词源]
Alsatian: Alsatian: [17] Alsatian has been around since at least the late 17th century (although in early use it generally denoted not the Franco-German border province of Alsace but a no-go area in London, near the banks of the Thames, where criminals, vagabonds and prostitutes hung out, which was nicknamed ‘Alsatia’ because of the real Alsace’s reputation as a harbour for the disaffected).

It really came into its own, however, during World War I. A breed of dog known as the ‘German sheepdog’ or ‘German shepherd dog’ (German deutscher Schäferhund) had been introduced into Britain, but understandably, between 1914 and 1918 its stock fell considerably. When it was reintroduced after the war it was thought politic to give it a less inflammatory name, so it became officially the ‘Alsatian wolf-dog’ (even though it has nothing to do with Alsace, and there is no element of wolf in its genetic make-up).

It continued to be called the German shepherd in the USA, and in the latter part of the 20th century that usage crept back into Britain.
appraise: appraise: [15] Originally, appraise meant simply ‘fix the price of’. It came from the Old French verb aprisier ‘value’, which is ultimately a parallel formation with appreciate; it is not clear whether it came directly from late Latin appretiāre, or whether it was a newly formed compound in Old French, based on pris ‘price’. Its earliest spellings in English were thus apprize and apprise, and these continued in use down to the 19th century, with the more metaphorical meaning ‘estimate the worth of’ gradually coming to the fore.

From the 16th century onwards, however, it seems that association with the word praise (which is quite closely related etymologically) has been at work, and by the 19th century the form appraise was firmly established. Apprise ‘inform’, with which appraise is often confused (and which appears superficially to be far closer to the source pris or pretium ‘price’), in fact has no etymological connection with it.

It comes from appris, the past participle of French apprendre ‘teach’ (closely related to English apprehend).
=> appreciate, price
booze: booze: [13] This word seems to have been borrowed on two distinct and widely separate occasions from Middle Dutch būsen ‘drink much alcohol’ (which some have connected with Middle High German būs ‘swelling’). In the 13th century this gave Middle English bouse, which if it had continued to the present day would have rhymed with the verb house. However, in the 16th century the Middle Dutch word was reborrowed, giving modern English booze.
bully: bully: [16] Bullies have undergone a sad decline in status. In the 16th century the word meant ‘sweetheart’: ‘Though she be somewhat old, it is my own sweet bully’, John Bale, Three laws 1538. But gradually the rot set in, its meaning passing through ‘fine fellow’ to ‘blusterer’ to the present-day harasser of inferiors. In the 18th and 19th centuries it also meant ‘pimp’.

It is probably a modification of Dutch boele ‘lover’ which, as a term of endearment, may have originated as baby-talk. This bully has no connection with the bully of bully beef [18], which comes from French bouilli, the past participle of bouillir ‘boil’. The bully of bully off [19], a now discontinued way of starting play in hockey, appears to come from a term for ‘scrummage’ in Eton football, but whether that is related to the cruel bully is not clear.
bumf: bumf: [20] The earliest, literal, but now long discontinued sense of bumf is ‘toilet paper’ (first recorded in 1889), which does much to elucidate its origin: it is short for bum fodder. The element of contempt is carried over into its modern meaning, ‘unwanted or uninteresting printed material’, which dates from around 1930.
chemical: chemical: [16] Essentially chemical, and the related chemistry and chemist, come from alchemy with the initial al- dropped. Alchemy itself is of Arabic origin; al represents the Arabic definite article ‘the’, while the second element was borrowed from Greek khēmíā ‘alchemy’. Loss of al- seems to have taken place originally in French, so the immediate source of the English words was French chimiste and chimique (whence the now obsolete English chemic, on which chemical was based).

At first this whole group of words continued to be used in the same sense as its progenitor alchemy; it is not really until the 17th century that we find it being consistently applied to what we would now recognize as the scientific discipline of chemistry.
=> alchemy
chest: chest: [OE] Chest comes ultimately from Greek kístē ‘box, basket’. In Latin this became cista (source of English cistern [13]). In prehistoric times the word was borrowed into Germanic as *kistā, which was the source of Old English cest. This still meant ‘box’, a sense which continued in isolation until the 16th century, when it was first applied to the ‘thorax’ – the basis of the metaphor presumably being that the ribs enclose the heart and lungs like a box. It has since replaced breast as the main term for the concept.
=> cistern
clinic: clinic: [17] Etymologically, a clinic is a place with ‘beds’. It comes ultimately from Greek klínē ‘bed’, which goes back to the Indo-European base *kli- ‘lean, slope’ (source also of English lean) and hence was originally ‘something on which one reclines’. The adjective derived from this, klīnkós, reached English via Latin clīnicus, having become specialized in meaning from ‘bed’ in general to ‘sick-bed’. Clinic was replaced as an adjective by clinical in the 18th century, but it continued on as a noun, originally in the sense ‘sick or bedridden person’.

This survived into the 19th century (‘You are free to roam at large over the bodies of my clinics’, E Berdoe, St Bernard’s 1887), and the modern sense ‘hospital’ did not arrive until the late 19th century, borrowed from French clinique or German klinik.
=> decline, lean
dunce: dunce: [16] Dunce originated as a contemptuous term for those who continued in the 16th century to adhere to the theological views of the Scottish scholar John Duns Scotus (c. 1265–1308). Renaissance philosophers ridiculed them as narrow-minded hair-splitters, and so before long the application of the word spread metaphorically to any ‘stuffy pedant’ in general, and hence, through the implication of a lack of true intellect, to ‘stupid person’. The conical dunce’s cap seems to have originated in the 19th century.
grog: grog: [18] Grog comes from the nickname of Edward Vernon (1684–1757), the British admiral who in 1740 introduced the practice of serving rum and water (grog) to sailors in the Royal Navy rather than the hitherto customary neat rum (it was discontinued in 1970). His nickname was ‘Old Grogram’, said to be an allusion to the grogram cloak he always wore (grogram ‘coarse fabric’ [16] comes from French gros grain, literally ‘coarse grain’). Groggy [18], originally ‘drunk’, is a derivative.
mercy: mercy: [12] Latin mercēs meant ‘payment, reward’. In the Christian era the notion of a ‘reward’ was taken up and reapplied metaphorically to the ‘compassion given freely by God to humankind’, and the word passed into Old French (in the form merci) with the broader sense ‘compassion’, and hence ‘forbearance from punishment’. English took it over and has continued to use it in much the same way, but its main role in modern French is as the word for ‘thank you’.
ought: ought: [OE] Ought began life as the past tense of owe, but the two have diverged widely over the centuries. The Old English ancestor of owe was āgan, and its past form was āhte. This originally shared all the meanings of its parent verb, of course, and continued to do so well into the 17th century (‘He said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound’, Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV 1596). Indeed, it survived dialectally until comparatively recently. But steadily since the 1600s its role as a quasi-modal auxiliary verb, denoting ‘obligation’, has come to the fore.
=> owe
police: police: [16] Etymologically, the police are in charge of the administration of a ‘city’. In fact, police is essentially the same word as policy ‘plan of action’. Both go back to Latin polītīa ‘civil administration’, a descendant of Greek pólis ‘city’. In medieval Latin a variant polītia emerged, which became French police.

English took it over, and at first continued to use it for ‘civil administration’ (Edmund Burke as late as 1791 described the Turks as ‘a barbarous nation, with a barbarous neglect of police, fatal to the human race’). Its specific application to the administration of public order emerged in France in the early 18th century, and the first body of public-order officers to be named police in England was the Marine Police, a force set up around 1798 to protect merchandise in the Port of London.
=> politics
pond: pond: [13] Pond is historically the same word as pound ‘enclosure’. The differentiation between the two was established early on, although pound continued to be used for ‘pond’ in Scotland and in some English dialects until quite recently. The common denominator is that ponds were originally specifically used for keeping fish in. The reason for the phonetic change from pound to pond is not known.
=> pound
prude: prude: [18] Old French prudefemme ‘virtuous woman’ meant literally ‘fine thing of a woman’. It was a lexicalization of the phrase *preu de femme, in which preu meant ‘fine, brave, virtuous’ (its variant prud gave English proud). In the 17th century it was shortened to prude (Molière is the first writer on record as using it), with distinctly negative connotations of ‘overvirtuousness’. It was borrowed into English at the beginning of the 18th century, and for a couple of hundred years continued to be used almost exclusively with reference to women.
=> proud
sequin: sequin: [17] When English first adopted sequin, it was the name of a coin. Its ultimate ancestor was Arabic sikkah, which denoted a die from which coins were minted (in Anglo-Indian English from the 17th to the 19th century, a sicca was a newly minted rupee). Italian took the word over as zecca, and created a diminutive form zecchino, referring to a gold coin.

The original application was specifically to a Venetian coin, but this subsequently broadened out, and the term was also used for a Turkish coin (alternatively known as a sultanin). In French, zecchino became sequin, which is the form in which English acquired it. The word might well have followed the coin into oblivion, but in the late 19th century it managed to get itself applied to the small round shiny pieces of metal applied to clothing, and its continued existence was guaranteed.
sky: sky: [13] Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called the sky heofon ‘heaven’. Not until the early Middle English period did heaven begin to be pushed aside by sky, a borrowing from Old Norse ský ‘cloud’. This came ultimately from an Indo- European base meaning ‘cover’, which also produced Latin obscūrus, source of English obscure [14]. (For a while English continued to use sky for ‘cloud’ as well as for ‘sky’: the medieval Scots poet William Dunbar wrote, ‘When sable all the heaven arrays with misty vapours, clouds, and skies’.)
=> obscure
vintage: vintage: [15] The vintage is etymologically the ‘taking away of wine’. The word’s ultimate source is Latin vindēmia ‘grape gathering’, a compound noun formed from vīnum ‘wine’ (source of English wine) and dēmere ‘take away, take off’ (which in turn was a compound verb based on emere ‘buy, take’). This passed into English via Old French vendange as vendage, which by association with vintner [15] (another derivative ultimately of Latin vīnum) soon changed to vintage.

It continued at first to be restricted to the general sense ‘grape crop’. The specific application to the crop of a particular year did not begin to emerge until the 18th century, and this led at the end of the 19th century to the broad use of the word for ‘year when something was produced’. Connotations of ‘oldness’ were encouraged by its application to ‘vintage cars’, first recorded in 1928.
=> vine, vintner, wine
admiral (n.): c. 1200, "Saracen commander or chieftain," from Old French amirail (12c.) "Saracen military commander; any military commander," ultimately from medieval Arabic amir "military commander," probably via Medieval Latin use of the word for "Muslim military leader." Meaning "highest-ranking naval officer" in English is from early 15c. The extension of the word's meaning from "commander on land" to "commander at sea" likely began in 12c. Sicily with Medieval Latin amiratus and then spread to the continent, but the word also continued to mean "Muslim military commander" in Europe in the Middle Ages.

The intrusive -d- probably is from influence of Latin ad-mirabilis (see admire). Italian form almiraglio, Spanish almirante are from confusion with Arabic words in al-. As a type of butterfly, from 1720, possibly a corruption of admirable.
ale (n.): Old English ealu "ale, beer," from Proto-Germanic *aluth- (cognates: Old Saxon alo, Old Norse öl), perhaps from PIE root meaning "bitter" (cognates: Latin alumen "alum"), or from PIE *alu-t "ale," from root *alu-, which has connotations of "sorcery, magic, possession, intoxication." The word was borrowed from Germanic into Lithuanian (alus) and Old Church Slavonic (olu).
In the fifteenth century, and until the seventeenth, ale stood for the unhopped fermented malt liquor which had long been the native drink of these islands. Beer was the hopped malt liquor introduced from the Low Countires in the fifteenth century and popular first of all in the towns. By the eighteenth century, however, all malt liquor was hopped and there had been a silent mutation in the meaning of the two terms. For a time the terms became synonymous, in fact, but local habits of nomenclature still continued to perpetuate what had been a real difference: 'beer' was the malt liquor which tended to be found in towns, 'ale' was the term in general use in the country districts. [Peter Mathias, "The Brewing Industry in England," Cambridge University Press, 1959]
Meaning "festival or merry-meeting at which much ale was drunk" was in Old English (see bridal).
Algonquin: one of an Indian people living near the Ottawa River in Canada, 1620s, from French Algonquin, perhaps a contraction of Algoumequin, from Micmac algoomeaking "at the place of spearing fish and eels." But Bright suggests Maliseet (Algonquian) elægomogwik "they are our relatives or allies."

Algonquian (1885) was the name taken by ethnologists to describe a large group of North American Indian peoples, including this tribe. Algonquin Hotel (59 W. 44th St., Manhattan) opened 1902 and named by manager Frank Case for the tribe that had lived in that area. A circle of journalists, authors, critics, and wits began meeting there daily in 1919 and continued through the twenties; they called themselves "The Vicious Circle," but to others they became "The Round Table."
all: Old English eall "all, every, entire," from Proto-Germanic *alnaz (cognates: Old Frisian, Old High German al, Old Norse allr, Gothic alls), with no certain connection outside Germanic.

Combinations with all meaning "wholly, without limit" were common in Old English (such as eall-halig "all-holy," eall-mihtig "all-mighty") and the method continued to form new compound words throughout the history of English. First record of all out "to one's full powers" is 1880. All-terrain vehicle first recorded 1968. All clear as a signal of "no danger" is recorded from 1902. All right, indicative of approval, is attested from 1953.
am (v.): Old English eom "to be, to remain," (Mercian eam, Northumbrian am), from PIE *esmi- (cognates: Old Norse emi, Gothic im, Hittite esmi, Old Church Slavonic jesmi, Lithuanian esmi), from root *es-, the S-ROOT, which also yielded Greek esti-, Latin est, Sanskrit as-, and German ist.

In Old English it existed only in present tense, all other forms being expressed in the W-BASE (see were, was). This cooperative verb is sometimes referred to by linguists as *es-*wes-. Until the distinction broke down 13c., *es-*wes- tended to express "existence," with beon meaning something closer to "come to be" (see be).

Old English am had two plural forms: 1. sind/sindon, sie and 2. earon/aron The s- form (also used in the subjunctive) fell from use in English in the early 13c. (though it continues in German sind, the 3rd person plural of "to be") and was replaced by forms of be, but aron (aren, arn, are, from Proto-Germanic *ar-, probably a variant of PIE root *es-) continued, and as am and be merged it encroached on some uses that previously had belonged to be. By the early 1500s it had established its place in standard English. Art became archaic in the 1800s.
Arcturus: late 14c., bright star in the constellation Bootes (also used of the whole constellation), from Latin Arcturus, from Greek Arktouros; anciently associated with the Bear, and its name is Greek for "guardian of the bear." See arctic; second element is from ouros "watcher, guardian, ward," from PIE root *wer- (4) "perceive" (see ward (n.)).

Arcturus in the Bible (Job ix:9 and xxxviii:32) is a mistranslation by Jerome (continued in KJV) of Hebrew 'Ayish, which refers to what we see as the "bowl" of the Big Dipper. In Israel and Arabia, the seven stars of the Great Bear seem to have been a bier (the "bowl") followed by three mourners. In the Septuagint it was translated as Pleiada, which is equally incorrect. The double nature of the great bear/wagon (see Big Dipper) has given two different names to the constellation that follows it: Arktouros "bear-ward" and bootes "the wagoner."
asleep (adj.): c. 1200, aslepe, o slæpe, from Old English on slæpe (see sleep). The parallel form on sleep continued until c. 1550. Of limbs, "numb through stoppage of circulation," from late 14c. Meaning "inattentive, off guard" is from mid-14c.
B.B.C. (n.): for British Broadcasting Company, and continued after 1927 when it was replaced by British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC English as a type of standardized English recommended for announcers is recorded from 1928.
bed-sore (n.): "gangrene caused by anemia due to continued pressure," 1833, from bed (n.) + sore (n.)
Beltane (n.): early 15c., from Lowland Scottish, from Gaelic bealltainn "May 1," important Celtic religious rite marking the start of summer, probably literally "blazing fire," from PIE root *bhel- (1) "to shine, flash, burn" (see bleach (v.)) + Old Irish ten "fire," from PIE *tepnos, related to Latin tepidus "warm." But this derivation of the second element is hotly disputed by some on philological grounds, and fires were equally important in the other Celtic holidays.
The rubbish about Baal, Bel, Belus imported into the word from the Old Testament and classical antiquity, is outside the scope of scientific etymology. [OED]
Also known as "Old May Day," because after the 1752 calendar reform it continued to be reckoned according to Old Style; it was one of the quarter-days of ancient Scotland.
bloviate (v.): 1857, American English, a Midwestern word for "to talk aimlessly and boastingly; to indulge in 'high falutin'," according to Farmer (1890), who seems to have been the only British lexicographer to notice it. He says it was based on blow (v.) on the model of deviate, etc.

It seems to have been felt as outdated slang already by late 19c. ("It was a leasure for him to hear the Doctor talk, or, as it was inelegantly expressed in the phrase of the period, 'bloviate' ...." ["Overland Monthly," San Francisco, 1872, describing a scene from 1860]), but it enjoyed a revival early 1920s during the presidency of Warren G. Harding, who wrote a notoriously ornate and incomprehensible prose (e.e. cummings eulogized him as "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors") at which time the word took on its connection with political speech; it faded again thereafter, but, with its derivative, bloviation, it enjoyed a revival in the 2000 U.S. election season that continued through the era of blogging.
bone (v.): especially in bone up "study," 1880s student slang, probably from "Bohn's Classical Library," a popular series in higher education published by German-born English publisher Henry George Bohn (1796-1884) as part of a broad series of "libraries" he issued from 1846, totaling 766 volumes, continued after 1864 by G. Bell & Sons.
chrome (n.): 1800, "chromium," from French chrome, the name proposed by Fourcroy and Haüy for a new element, from Greek khroma "color" (see chroma); so called because it makes colorful compounds. The name was given to the metallic element now known as chromium (which had been isolated 1798 by French chemist Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin); it continued in commercial use in English for "chrome steel" (steel with 2 percent or so chrome) after the chemical name was changed internationally. As a short form of chromium plating it dates from 1937. Related: Chromic.
cloture (n.): 1871, the French word for "closure, the action of closing," applied to debates in the French Assembly ("action of closing (debate) by will of a majority"), then to the House of Commons and U.S. Congress, from French clôture, from Old French closture (see closure). It was especially used in English by those opposed to the tactic.
In foreign countries the Clôture has been used notoriously to barricade up a majority against the "pestilent" criticism of a minority, and in this country every "whip" and force is employed by the majority to re-assert its continued supremacy and to keep its ranks intact whenever attacked. How this one-sided struggle to maintain solidarity can be construed into "good for all" is inexplicable in the sense uttered. ["The clôture and the Recent Debate, a Letter to Sir J. Lubbock," London, 1882]
continue (v.): mid-14c., contynuen, from Old French continuer (13c.), from Latin continuare "join together, connect, make or be continuous," from continuus "uninterrupted," from continere (intransitive) "to be uninterrupted," literally "to hang together" (see contain). Related: Continued; continuing.
cutpurse (n.): "one who steals by the method of cutting purses, a common practice when men wore their purses at their girdles" [Johnson], mid-14c., from cut (v.) + purse (n.). The word continued after the method switched to picking pockets.
discontinue (v.): late 14c., from Old French discontinuer (14c.), from Medieval Latin discontinuare, from dis- "not" (see dis-) + Latin continuare "to continue" (see continue). Related: Discontinued; discontinuity; discontinuous; discontinuation.
drought (n.): Old English drugað, drugoð "drought, dryness, desert," from Proto-Germanic *drugothaz, from Germanic root *dreug- "dry" (cf high/height) with *-itho, Germanic suffix for forming abstract nouns (see -th (2)). Drouth was a Middle English variant continued in Scottish and northern English dialect and in poetry.
Ebionite: mid-15c., sect (1c.-2c.) that held Jesus was a mere man and Christians continued bound by Mosaic Law, from Latin ebonita, from Hebrew ebyon "the poor." The reason it was so called is uncertain. Related: Ebionism; Ebionitic.
endurance (n.): late 15c., "continued existence in time;" see endure + -ance. Meaning "ability to bear suffering, etc." is from 1660s.
fast (v.): "abstain from food," Old English fæstan "to fast" (as a religious duty), also "to make firm; establish, confirm, pledge," from Proto-Germanic *fastan "to hold fast, observe abstinence" (cognates: Old Frisian festia, Old High German fasten, German fasten, Old Norse fasta "abstain from food"), from the same root as fast (adj.).

The original meaning in prehistoric Germanic was "hold firmly," and the sense evolved via "have firm control of oneself," to "hold oneself to observance" (compare Gothic fastan "to keep, observe," also "to fast"). Perhaps the Germanic sense shifted through use of the native words to translate Medieval Latin observare in its sense "to fast." The verb in the sense "to make fast" continued in Middle English, but was superseded by fasten. Related: Fasted; fasting.
freedman (n.): "manumitted slave," c. 1600, from past participle of free (adj.) + man (n.). Especially in U.S. history. The older word is freeman. Freedman's Bureau (1865) was the popular name of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, established by Congress March 3, 1865, and discontinued in 1872.
freemason (n.): late 14c., originally a traveling guild of masons with a secret code; in the early 17c. they began accepting honorary members and teaching them the secrets and lore, which was continued into or revived in the 17th century and by 1717 had developed into the secret fraternity of affiliated lodges known as Free and Accepted Masons (commonly abbreviated F. and A. M.). The accepted refers to persons admitted to the society but not belonging to the craft.

The exact origin of the free- is a subject of dispute. Some [such as Klein] see a corruption of French frère "brother," from frèremaçon "brother mason;" others say it was because the masons worked on "free-standing" stones; still others see them as "free" from the control of local guilds or lords [OED]. Related: freemasonic.
fuck (v.): "to have sexual intercourse with" (transitive), until recently a difficult word to trace in usage, in part because it was omitted as taboo by the editors of the original OED when the "F" entries were compiled (1893-97). Johnson also had excluded the word, and fuck wasn't in a single English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965. "The Penguin Dictionary" broke the taboo in the latter year. Houghton Mifflin followed, in 1969, with "The American Heritage Dictionary," but it also published a "Clean Green" edition without the word, to assure itself access to the public high school market.

Written form attested from early 16c.; OED 2nd edition cites 1503, in the form fukkit, and the earliest attested appearance of current spelling is 1535 ("Bischops ... may fuck thair fill and be vnmaryit" [Sir David Lyndesay, "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits"]). Presumably it is a more ancient word, but one not written in the kind of texts that have survived from Old English and Middle English. Buck cites proper name John le Fucker from 1278, but that surname could have other explanations. The word apparently is hinted at in a scurrilous 15c. poem, titled "Flen flyys," written in bastard Latin and Middle English. The relevant line reads:
Non sunt in celi
quia fuccant uuiuys of heli
"They [the monks] are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of [the town of] Ely." Fuccant is pseudo-Latin, and in the original it is written in cipher. The earliest examples of the word otherwise are from Scottish, which suggests a Scandinavian origin, perhaps from a word akin to Norwegian dialectal fukka "copulate," or Swedish dialectal focka "copulate, strike, push," and fock "penis." Another theory traces the Modern English verb to Middle English fyke, fike "move restlessly, fidget" (see fike) which also meant "dally, flirt," and probably is from a general North Sea Germanic word (compare Middle Dutch fokken, German ficken "fuck," earlier "make quick movements to and fro, flick," still earlier "itch, scratch;" the vulgar sense attested from 16c.). This would parallel in sense the vulgar Middle English term for "have sexual intercourse," swive, from Old English swifan "to move lightly over, sweep" (see swivel). But OED remarks that these "cannot be shown to be related" to the English word. Liberman has this to say:
Germanic words of similar form (f + vowel + consonant) and meaning 'copulate' are numerous. One of them is G. ficken. They often have additional senses, especially 'cheat,' but their basic meaning is 'move back and forth.' ... Most probably, fuck is a borrowing from Low German and has no cognates outside Germanic.
Chronology and phonology rule out Shipley's attempt to derive it from Middle English firk "to press hard, beat." The unkillable urban legend that this word is an acronym of some sort (a fiction traceable on the Internet to 1995 but probably predating that), and the "pluck yew" fable, are results of ingenious trifling (also see here). The Old English verb for "have sexual intercourse with" was hæman, from ham "dwelling, home," with a sense of "take home, co-habit." French foutre and Italian fottere seem to resemble the English word but are unrelated, descending rather from Latin futuere, which perhaps is from PIE root *bhau(t)- "knock, strike off," extended via a figurative use "from the sexual application of violent action" [Shipley; compare the sexual slang use of bang, etc.].

Fuck was outlawed in print in England (by the Obscene Publications Act, 1857) and the U.S. (by the Comstock Act, 1873). The word continued in common speech, however. During World War I: "It became so common that an effective way for the soldier to express this emotion was to omit this word. Thus if a sergeant said, 'Get your ----ing rifles!' it was understood as a matter of routine. But if he said 'Get your rifles!' there was an immediate implication of urgency and danger." [John Brophy, "Songs and Slang of the British Soldier: 1914-1918," pub. 1930]. The legal barriers against use in print broke down in mid-20c. with the "Ulysses" decision (U.S., 1933) and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960). The major breakthrough in publication was James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" (1950), with 50 fucks (down from 258 in the original manuscript).

The abbreviation F (or eff) probably began as euphemistic, but by 1943 it was regarded as a cuss word in its own right. In 1948, the publishers of "The Naked and the Dead" persuaded Norman Mailer to use the euphemism fug. When Mailer later was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, "So you're the man who can't spell 'fuck' " [The quip sometimes is attributed to Tallulah Bankhead]. Hemingway used muck in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940). Related: Fucked; fucking. Fuck-all "nothing" first recorded 1960. Verbal phrase fuck up "to ruin, spoil, destroy" is attested from c. 1916. A widespread group of Slavic words (such as Polish pierdolić) can mean both "fornicate" and "make a mistake." Fuck off attested from 1929; as a command to depart, by 1944. Egyptian legal agreements from the 23rd Dynasty (749-21 B.C.E.) frequently include the phrase, "If you do not obey this decree, may a donkey copulate with you!" [Reinhold Aman, "Maledicta," Summer 1977].
further (v.): Old English fyrðran, fyrðrian "to impel, urge on; advance, promote, benefit;" see further (adv.). Compare Middle Low German vorderen, Old High German furdiran, German fördern, probably from their respective adjectives via the notion in phrases such as Old English don furðor "to promote." Related: Furthered; furthering. After the further/farther split, this sense also continued in a shadow verb farther (v.), attested from 16c. but apparently dying out 19c.
gnaw (v.): Old English gnagan "to gnaw, bite off little by little" (past tense *gnog, past participle gnagan), from Proto-Germanic *gh(e)n- "to gnaw" (cognates: Old Saxon gnagan, Old Norse, Swedish gnaga, Middle Dutch, Dutch knagen, Old High German gnagan, German nagen "to gnaw"), probably imitative of gnawing. Figurative sense "wear away as if by continued biting" is from early 13c. Related: Gnawed; gnawing.
grand (adj.): late 14c., grant "large, big" (early 12c. in surnames), from Anglo-French graunt and directly from Old French grant, grand (10c., Modern French grand) "large, tall; grown-up; great, powerful, important; strict, severe; extensive; numerous," from Latin grandis "big, great; full, abundant," also "full-grown;" figuratively "strong, powerful, weighty, severe," of unknown origin. In Vulgar Latin it supplanted magnus and continued in the Romanic languages. The connotations of "noble, sublime, lofty, dignified," etc., were in Latin. In English it developed a special sense of "imposing." Meaning "principal, chief, most important" (especially in titles) is from 1560s; that of "of very high or noble quality" is from 1712. As a general term of admiration, "magnificent, splendid," from 1816. Related: Grander; grandest.

Grand jury is late 15c. Grand piano from 1797. The grand tour of the principal sites of continental Europe, as part of a gentleman's education, is attested by that name from 1660s. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in western U.S. was so called by 1869, popularized by Maj. John Wesley Powell, scientific adventurer, who explored it; earlier it had been known as Big Canyon. For grand slam see slam (n.2).
great (adj.): Old English great "big, tall, thick, stout, massive; coarse," from West Germanic *grautaz "coarse, thick" (cognates: Old Saxon grot, Old Frisian grat, Dutch groot, German groß "great"). If the original sense was "coarse," it is perhaps from PIE root *ghreu- "to rub, grind," but "the connextion is not free from difficulty" [OED]. It took over much of the sense of Middle English mickle, and itself now is largely superseded by big and large except in reference to non-material things.

In the sense of "excellent, wonderful" great is attested from 1848. Great White Way "Broadway in New York City" is from 1901, in reference to brilliant street illumination. The Great Lakes of North America so called from 1747. Great Spirit "high deity of the North American Indians," 1703, originally translates Ojibwa kitchi manitou. The Great War originally (1887) referred to the Napoleonic Wars, later (1914) to what we now call World War I (see world).
"The Great War" -- as, until the fall of France, the British continued to call the First World War in order to avoid admitting to themselves that they were now again engaged in a war of the same magnitude. [Arnold Toynbee, "Experiences," 1969]
Also formerly with a verb form, Old English greatian "to become enlarged," Middle English greaten "to become larger, increase, grow; become visibly pregnant," which became archaic after 17c.
groat (n.): medieval European coin, late 14c., probably from Middle Dutch groot, elliptical use of the adjective meaning "great, big" (in this case, "thick"), from the name of some large coin (for example the Bremen grote sware, and compare Medieval Latin grossi denarii in reference to a Prague coin) to distinguish it from smaller coins of the same name. Cognate with English great (adj.). Recognized from 13c. in various nations. The original English groat coined of 1351-2 was worth four pence; it was discontinued in 1622. Also see groschen.
Hesperus: late 14c., poetic for "the evening star," from Latin Hesperus, from Greek hesperos (aster) "western (star)," from PIE *wes-pero- "evening, night" (see vesper). Hence also Hesperides (1590s), from Greek, "daughters of the West," the nymphs (variously numbered but originally three) who tended the garden with the golden apples. Their name has been mistakenly transferred to the garden itself.
The Hesperides were daughters of Atlas, an enormous giant, who, as the ancients believed, stood upon the western confines of the earth, and supported the heavens on his shoulders. Their mother was Hesperis, a personification of the "region of the West," where the sun continued to shine after he had set on Greece, and where, as travellers told, was an abundance of choice delicious fruits, which could only have been produced by a special divine influence. The Gardens of the Hesperides with the golden apples were believed to exist in some island in the ocean, or, as it was sometimes thought, in the islands on the north or west coast of Africa. They were far-famed in antiquity; for it was there that springs of nectar flowed by the couch of Zeus, and there that the earth displayed the rarest blessings of the gods; it was another Eden. As knowledge increased with regard to western lands, it became necessary to move this paradise farther and farther out into the Western Ocean. [Alexander Murray, "Manual of Mythology," 1888]
hour (n.): mid-13c., from Old French hore "one-twelfth of a day" (sunrise to sunset), from Latin hora "hour, time, season," from Greek hora "any limited time," from PIE *yor-a-, from root *yer- "year, season" (see year). Greek hora was "a season; 'the season;'" in classical times, sometimes, "a part of the day," such as morning, evening, noon, night.

The Greek astronomers apparently borrowed the notion of dividing the day into twelve parts (mentioned in Herodotus) from the Babylonians (night continued to be divided into four watches), but as the amount of daylight changed throughout the year, the hours were not fixed or of equal length. Equinoctal hours did not become established in Europe until the 4c., and as late as 16c. distinction sometimes was made between temporary (unequal) hours and sidereal (equal) ones. The h- has persisted in this word despite not being pronounced since Roman times. Replaced Old English tid, literally "time" (see tide (n.)) and stund "period of time, point of time, hour" (compare German Stunde "hour"), As a measure of distance ("the distance that can be covered in an hour") it is recorded from 1785.