quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- ditch[ditch 词源字典]
- ditch: [OE] Like its close relative dyke [13], ditch probably comes ultimately from a long-lost language once spoken on the shores of the Baltic. Its source-word seems to have represented an all-embracing notion of ‘excavation’, including not just the hole dug but also the mound formed from the excavated earth (which perhaps supports the suggestion that dig belongs to the same word-family). This dichotomy of sense is preserved in dyke, whose original meaning, from Old Norse dík, was ‘ditch’, but which came in the 15th century to denote ‘embankment’ (probably under the influence of Middle Dutch dijc ‘dam’).
=> dig, dyke[ditch etymology, ditch origin, 英语词源] - ditch (n.)
- Old English dic "ditch, dike," a variant of dike (q.v.). Last ditch (1715) refers to the last line of military defenses.
- ditch (v.)
- late 14c., "surround with a ditch; dig a ditch;" from ditch (n.). Meaning "to throw into a ditch" is from 1816, hence sense of "abandon, discard," first recorded 1899 in American English. Of aircraft, by 1941. Related: Ditched; ditching.