derrickyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[derrick 词源字典]
derrick: [16] Around the end of the 16th century there was a famous Tyburn hangman called Derick. His name came to be used as a personification of hangmen in general, and subsequently as a metaphor for the ‘gallows’. Gradually, however, these macabre associations were lost, and by the 18th century derrick had progressed in meaning to ‘hoisting apparatus’.
[derrick etymology, derrick origin, 英语词源]
derrick (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
c. 1600, originally "hangman," then "a gallows," then "hoist, crane" (1727), from surname of a hangman at Tyburn gallows, London, c. 1606-1608, often referred to in contemporary theater. The name represents a late borrowing from the Low Countries (compare Dutch Diederik) of Old High German Theodric (see Dietrich).