英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

any [any 词源字典]: any: [OE] Any is descended from a prehistoric Germanic compound meaning literally ‘one-y’ (a formation duplicated in unique, whose Latin source ūnicus was compounded of ūnus ‘one’ and the adjective suffix -icus). Germanic *ainigaz was formed from *ain- (source of English one) and the stem *-ig-, from which the English adjective suffix -y is ultimately derived. In Old English this had become ǣnig, which diversified in Middle English to any and eny; modern English any preserves the spelling of the former and the pronunciation of the latter.
=> one[any etymology, any origin, 英语词源]
furnish: furnish: [15] Far apart as they may now seem, furnish is closely parallel in its development with frame. Both originated as verbs based on from, in its earliest signification ‘forward movement, advancement, progress’. Frame was a purely English formation, but furnish goes back beyond that to prehistoric Germanic, where it was formed as *frumjan. This was borrowed into Vulgar Latin as *fromīre, which in due course diversified to *formīre and *fornīre, the form adopted into Old French as furnir.

Its lengthened stem furniss- provided English with furnish. To begin with this retained the ancestral sense ‘advance to completion, accomplish, fulfil’ (‘Behight [promise] no thing but that ye may furnish and hold it’, Melusine 1500). However, this died out in the mid 16th century, leaving the field clear for the semantic extension ‘provide’. The derivative furniture [16] comes from French fourniture, but its main meaning, ‘chairs, tables, etc’, recorded from as early as the 1570s, is a purely English development (the majority of European languages get their word for ‘furniture’ from Latin mōbīle ‘movable’: French meubles, Italian mobili, Spanish muebles, German möbel, Swedish möbler, Dutch meubelen, Russian mebel’ – indeed, even Middle English had mobles, though it retained the broader meaning ‘movable property’).

By another route, Old French furnir has also given English veneer.
=> from, furniture, veneer
holy: holy: [OE] Holy originated as a derivative of the prehistoric Germanic adjective which produced modern English whole, and so its etymological meaning is perhaps ‘unimpaired, inviolate’. This ancestral form was *khailagaz, which diversified into German and Dutch heilig, Swedish helig, and Danish hellig as well as English holy. Hallow is essentially the same word, and compounds with holy as a now hidden component include hollyhock [13] as well as holiday.
=> hallow, holiday
knee: knee: [OE] The majority of modern European words for ‘knee’ go back to a common Indo- European ancestor which probably originally signified ‘bend’. This was *g(e)neu or *goneu, which lies behind Latin genu ‘knee’ (source of French genou and Italian ginocchio, and also of English genuine) and may well be connected with Greek gōníā ‘angle’, from which English gets diagonal.

It passed into Germanic as *knewam, which over the centuries has diversified into German and Dutch knie, Swedish knä, Danish knoe, and English knee. The derivative kneel [OE] was formed before the Anglo-Saxons reached Britain, and is shared by Dutch (knielen).
=> genuine, kneel
knot: knot: [OE] The word knot goes back ultimately to a prehistoric Germanic *knūdn-, whose underlying meaning was ‘round lump’. This only emerged in the English word (in such senses as ‘point from which a branch has grown’) in the Middle English period, but it can be seen in knoll [OE], which is a derivative of the same base (the related German knolle means ‘lump’). Knob [14] may be related too, although this has never been conclusively demonstrated.

The Germanic form diversified into English and Dutch knot, German knoten, Swedish knut, and Danish knode (whose Old Norse ancestor knútr was borrowed into Russian as knut ‘whip’, acquired by English as knout [18]). Knit [OE], which originally meant ‘tie in knots’, was derived in prehistoric West Germanic from knot.
=> knit
lace: lace: [13] Lace originally meant ‘noose’ or ‘snare’, and its underlying semantic connections are not with ‘string’ or ‘thread’ but with ‘entrapment’ or ‘enticement’. Its ultimate source was Latin laqueus ‘noose’, which was related to the verb lacere ‘lure, deceive’ (source of English delicious and elicit). This passed into Vulgar Latin as *lacium, which in due course diversified into Italian laccio, Spanish lazo (source of English lasso [19]), and French lacs.

It was the latter’s Old French predecessor, laz or las, that gave English lace. The sense ‘noose’ had died out by the early 17th century, but by then it had already developed via ‘string, cord’ to ‘cord used for fastening clothes’. ‘Open fabric made of threads’ emerged in the mid-16th century. Latch [14] is thought to be distantly related.
=> delicious, elicit, lasso, latch
lame: lame: [OE] Prehistoric Germanic had an adjective *lamon which meant ‘weak-limbed’, and seems to have originated in a base which meant something like ‘break by hitting’ (English lam ‘hit’ [16], as in ‘lam into someone’, and its derivative lambaste [17] probably come from the same source). In the modern Germanic languages it has diversified into two strands of meaning: Dutch, Swedish, and Danish lam denote mainly ‘paralysed’, a sense also present in German lahm, while English lame has taken the path of ‘limping, crippled’.
=> lam, lambaste
lean: lean: [OE] Lean ‘thin’ and lean ‘incline’ are of course of completely different origin. The adjective goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *khlainjaz. The verb can be traced to an Indo- European base *kli- ‘lean, slope’, which has given English a wealth of vocabulary. Via Greek intermediaries have come climate, climax, and clinic, while its Latin descendant clīnāre has produced decline, incline, and recline.

The prehistoric Germanic verb formed from it was *khlinōjan, which has diversified into modern German lehnen, Dutch leunen, and English lean. From the same Germanic base come ladder, and also perhaps links ‘golf course’ [OE], which originally meant ‘sloping or rising ground’.
=> climate, climax, clinic, decline, incline, ladder, links, recline
length: length: [OE] Length was coined in the prehistoric Germanic period from the adjective *langgaz (source of English long) and the abstract noun suffix *-ithō. The resultant *langgithō has subsequently diversified to Dutch lengte, Swedish längd, Danish længde, and English length. (German has plumped for the different noun derivative länge ‘length’, whose English relative lenge ‘length’ survived until the 17th century.)
=> long
over: over: [OE] Etymologically, over denotes ‘more up, upper’. It originated as an Indo-European comparative form derived from the base *upó ‘under’, which gave rise to English up. This became prehistoric Germanic *uberi, which has diversified into German über, Swedish öfver, and Dutch, Danish, and English over. A derivative of the same base forms the second syllable of English above, while amongst over’s more surprising relatives are eaves and evil.
=> above, eaves, evil, up
seven: seven: [OE] The Indo-European term for ‘seven’ was *septm. This evolved into Latin septem (source of English September), Greek heptá (source of English heptathlon [20]), and Germanic *sebun. And *sebun in turn has diversified into German sieben, Dutch zeven, Swedish sju, Danish syv, and English seven.
=> heptathlon, september
slight: slight: [13] The ancestral sense of slight is ‘level, even’. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *slekhtaz, a word of unknown origin which had that meaning, but whose descendants have diversified semantically beyond all recognition (German schlecht and Dutch slecht, for instance, now mean ‘bad’, having arrived there by way of ‘level, smooth’ and ‘simple, ordinary’). ‘Smooth’ was the original meaning of English slight (Miles Coverdale, in his 1535 translation of the Bible, recorded how David ‘chose five slight stones out of the river’ to confront Goliath with (1 Samuel 17:40), where the Authorized Version of 1611 has ‘smooth stones’), and it survived dialectally into the 20th century.

By the 14th century, however, it was evolving into ‘slim’, and this eventually became, in the early 16th century, ‘small in amount’. English acquired the adjective from Old Norse sléttr ‘smooth’, and Old Norse was also the original source of a verb slight [13], meaning ‘make level or smooth’. This died out in the 17th century, however, and the modern verb slight ‘disdain, snub’, first recorded at the end of the 16th century, is derived from the adjective, in the sense ‘of little importance’.

The noun comes from the verb.
son: son: [OE] Son is an ancient word, with relatives in several Indo-European languages: Russian, Polish, and Czech syn, for instance, Sanskrit sūnús, and Greek huiús. These point back to an ancestral *sunu- or *sunyu-. This may have been related to Sanskrit sú- ‘bear, carry’, in which case its original meaning would have been ‘birth’, which evolved via ‘offspring’ to ‘son’. The prehistoric Germanic descendant of *sunuwas *sunuz, which has diversified into German sohn, Dutch zoon, Danish søn, and English and Swedish son.
trough: trough: [OE] Etymologically, a trough is something made out of ‘wood’. Its ultimate source is Indo-European *drukós, a derivative of the base *dru- ‘wood, tree’ (source also of English tree). This passed into prehistoric Germanic as *trugaz, which has since diversified into German and Dutch trog, Swedish tråg, Danish trug, and English trough. English trug ‘shallow basket’ [16] is a variant of trough.
=> tray, tree, trug
varlet: varlet: [15] Varlet and valet [16] are doublets – they come from the same ultimate source. This was Vulgar Latin *vassus, a borrowing from Old Celtic *wasso- ‘young man, squire’. From *vassus were derived two medieval Latin diminutive forms: vassallus, which has given English vassal [14], and *vassellitus. This passed into Old French as vaslet, which diversified into valet (source of English valet) and varlet (source of English varlet).

Both to begin with retained their original connotations of a ‘young man in service to a knight’, and hence by extension any ‘feudal retainer or servant’, but while valet still denotes a ‘servant’, varlet went down in the world in the 16th century to ‘knave’.
=> valet, vassal
diversify (v.): late 15c., from Old French diversifier (13c.) "to make diverse," from Medieval Latin diversificare, from Latin diversus (see diverse). Economic sense is from 1939. Related: Diversified; diversifying.
motley (adj.): late 14c., "parti-colored" (originally of fabric), from Anglo-French motteley, probably from Old English mot "speck" (see mote). But Klein's sources say probably from Gaulish. "Diversified in color," especially of a fool's dress. Hence, allusively, "a fool" (1600). As a noun meaning "cloth of mixed color" from late 14c.
varicolored (adj.): "diversified in color, motley," also vari-colored, 1660s, from Latin varius (see vary) + English colored (adj.).