quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- disaster[disaster 词源字典]
- disaster: [16] The word disaster has astrological connotations. It comes, perhaps via French désastre, from Italian disastro; this was a backformation from disastrato, literally ‘ill-starred’, a compound adjective formed from the pejorative prefix dis- and astro ‘star’, a descendant of Latin astrum ‘star’. This in turn came from Greek astron ‘star’, source of English astronomy and related to English star. So the underlying meaning of the word is ‘malevolent astral influence’. Provençal has the parallel malastre ‘misfortune’.
[disaster etymology, disaster origin, 英语词源] - disaster (n.)
- 1590s, from Middle French désastre (1560s), from Italian disastro "ill-starred," from dis-, here merely pejorative (see dis-) + astro "star, planet," from Latin astrum, from Greek astron (see star (n.)). The sense is astrological, of a calamity blamed on an unfavorable position of a planet.