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 Adulter, the equivalent of avouter, clung on until the end of the 18th century, but the noun was superseded in the end by adulterer and the verb by a new form, adulterate, directly based on the past participle of Latin adulterāre, which continued to mean ‘commit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]
adumbrate: adumbrate: see umbrage
arduous: arduous: [16] Latin arduus, the source of English arduous, originally meant ‘high, steep’ (it is related to Greek orthós ‘straight, upright, correct’, as in English orthodox); the sense ‘difficult, laborious’ was a later metaphorical development. (The word has no connection with ardour, which comes ultimately from Latin ardēre ‘burn’; see ARSON.)
=> orthodox
assiduous: assiduous: see assess
corduroy: corduroy: [18] Popular etymology usually associates corduroy with a supposed French corde du roy ‘cord of the king’ or even couleur du roy ‘king’s colour’ (the original corduroy having according to this theory been purple), but in fact there is no concrete evidence to substantiate this. A more likely explanation is that the word’s first syllable represents cord in the sense ‘ribbed fabric’, and that the second element is the now obsolete noun duroy ‘coarse woollen fabric’ [17], of unknown origin.
deciduous: deciduous: see decay
dual: dual: [17] Dual was borrowed from Latin duālis, a derivative of duo ‘two’ (which is a distant relative of English two). In Latin it was used particularly by grammarians, to denote the category ‘two people or things’ (as opposed to the plural, referring to three or more), and this was the earliest sense of the word adopted by English. (Incidentally, despite its formal similarity, and a common meaning element – two people participate – duel [15] is not etymologically related to dual; it comes from medieval Latin duellum, which was originally an archaic form of Latin bellum ‘war’.
=> two
dub: dub: English has two words dub. By far the older, ‘create a knight, name’ [11], was one of the first linguistic fruits of the Norman conquest, which was during the Middle English period to contribute such a vast number of French words to the English language. It came from Anglo- Norman duber, which was a reduced form of aduber, the Anglo-Norman version of Old French adober.

This meant ‘equip, repair, arrange’, but also specifically ‘equip with armour’, which led metaphorically to ‘confer the rank of knighthood on’. The sense ‘arrange’ has remained in use in various technical areas up to the present time, and its application to the dressing of leather with grease formed the basis of the noun dubbin ‘mixture of oil and tallow for softening and waterproofing leather’ [18]. Dub ‘insert soundtrack’ [20] is a shortened version of double.
=> dubbin; double
dubious: dubious: see doubt
ducat: ducat: see duke
duchess: duchess: see duke
duchy: duchy: see duke
duck: duck: [OE] A duck is a bird that ‘ducks’ – as simple as that. It gets its name from its habit of diving down under the surface of the water. There is no actual record of an English verb duck until the 14th century, but it is generally assumed that an Old English verb *dūcan did exist, which would have formed the basis of the noun duck. It came from a prehistoric West Germanic verb *dukjan, which also produced German tauchen ‘dive’.

English is the only language which uses this word for the bird, although Swedish has the term dykand, literally ‘dive-duck’, which refers to the ‘diver’, a sort of large waterbird. Nor is it the original English word: the Anglo-Saxons mainly called the duck ened, a term which survived until the 15th century. This represents the main Indo-European name for the duck, which comes from an original *anə ti- and is found in Greek nessa, Latin anas, German ente, Dutch eend, Swedish and, and Russian utka.
duct: duct: [17] Duct comes from Latin ductus, a noun formed from the past participle of the verb dūcere ‘lead’. This is among the most prolific Latin sources of English words. It appears in numerous prefixed forms, all containing to some extent the underlying meaning element ‘lead’, such as deduce, introduce, produce, and reduce, as well as educate and, in less obvious form, subdue.

Its past participle produced aqueduct and ductile [14], not to mention (via Vulgar Latin *ductiāre and Italian docciare) douche [18]. And furthermore it comes ultimately from the same Indo-European source as produced English team, teem, tie, tight, tow, and tug.
=> aqueduct, conduct, deduce, deduct, douche, duke, educate, introduce, produce, reduce, seduce, team, tie, tight, tow, tug
due: due: see duty
duel: duel: see dual
duenna: duenna: see dame
duet: duet: [18] The original term for ‘two musicians’ was Italian duo, a descendant of Latin duo ‘two’. English acquired this in the 16th century. But Italian (the major source of Western musical vocabulary) also produced a diminutive form duetto, literally ‘little duo’, which English borrowed either directly (the unanglicized form duetto was used in English for about a hundred years from the 1720s) or perhaps via German duett.
=> two
duff: duff: see dough
duffel: duffel: [17] Duffel is actually a sort of heavy woollen material, and like so many names of fabrics, it comes from the place where it was originally made or exported from – in this case Duffel, a town in Belgium, near Antwerp. However, the term duffel coat (which dates back to the late 17th century) has in modern times become associated with a particular design of coat (with a hood and toggles) as much as with the material it is made from. Duffel bag [20], a term of American origin, was to begin with a bag for ‘personal belongings and equipment’, or duffel, as it is called in American English (the application seems to have started with ‘spare clothes made of duffel’).
duffer: duffer: see deaf
duke: duke: [12] Duke is one of a wide range of English words which come ultimately from the Latin verb dūcere ‘lead’ (see DUCT). In this case its source was the Latin derivative dux ‘leader’ (ancestor also of Italian duce, the title adopted by the 20th-century dictator Benito Mussolini), which passed into English via Old French duc. In Latin the word signified ‘military commander of a province’, and in the so-called Dark Ages it was taken up in various European languages as the term for a ‘prince ruling a small state’.

Old English never adopted it though, preferring its own word earl, and it was not until the 14th century that it was formally introduced, by Edward III, as a rank of the English peerage. Before that the word had been used in English only in the titles of foreign dukes, or (echoing the word’s etymological meaning) as a general term for ‘leader’ or ‘military commander’. The feminine form duchess [14] comes from Old French, while English has two terms for a duke’s rank or territory: the native dukedom [15], and duchy [14], borrowed from Old French duche (this came partly from medieval Latin ducātus, ultimate source of English ducat [14], a former Italian coin).
=> conduct, ducat, duchess, duchy, duct, produce
dull: dull: [13] Dull originally meant ‘slow-witted’. It was borrowed from Middle Low German dul, a descendant of the prehistoric Germanic adjective *dulaz, which also produced German toll and Old English dol ‘stupid’ (the Old English adjective does not seem to have survived beyond the 10th century). The modern meaning ‘boring’ developed in the 15th century. The now littleused dullard [15] is a derivative (reflecting the adjective’s original sense), as also is probably dolt [16].
=> dolt
dumb: dumb: [OE] The notion underlying dumb is of ‘sensory or mental impairment’. It goes back to a nasalized version of prehistoric Indo-European *dheubh-, denoting ‘confusion, stupefaction, or dizziness’, which was also the ultimate source of English deaf. This developed two stands of meaning. The first, through association of ‘sensory or mental impairment’ and ‘slowwittedness’, led to forms such as German dumm and Dutch dom, which mean ‘stupid’ (the use of dumb to mean ‘stupid’ did not develop until the 19th century, in American English, presumably under the influence of the German and Dutch adjectives).

The other was semantic specialization to a particular sort of mental impairment, the inability to speak, which produced Gothic dumbs, Old Norse dumbr, and English dumb. (The German word for ‘dumb’, stumm, is related to English stammer and stumble, as are Dutch stom and Swedish stum.) Dummy [16] is a derivative; it originally meant ‘dumb person’.
=> deaf, dummy
dump: dump: [14] Dump is probably of Scandinavian origin – Danish and Norwegian have the similar dumpe and dumpa, which mean ‘fall suddenly’ – although Dutch dompen ‘immerse, topple’ is another candidate that has been put forward. Either way, there does not seem to be any direct connection with the dumps [16], which was probably originally a metaphorical use of Dutch domp ‘haze’, in the sense ‘miasma of depression’. Nor has any relationship been established with the obsolete noun dump ‘lump’ [18], which appears to have close ties with dumpling [16] and dumpy [16], although whether as source or descendant (by backformation) is a debatable point.
dun: dun: English has two words dun. The colour adjective, ‘greyish brown’ [OE], comes ultimately from Indo-European *donnos, *dusnos, which is also the source of English dusk. The now rather dated noun, ‘debtcollector’ [17], is an abbreviation of dunkirk, a 17th-century term for a ‘privateer’, a privately owned vessel officially allowed to attack enemy shipping during wartime.

It was originally applied from such privateers that sailed from the port of Dunkirk, on the northern coast of France, to attack British ships, and its connotations of unwarranted piracy soon spread metaphorically to one who was constantly importuning for the repayment of his loan.
=> donkey, dusk, obfuscate
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.
dune: dune: see down
dung: dung: see dingy
dungeon: dungeon: [14] In common with a wide range of other English words, including danger, demesne, dominion, domino, and don, dungeon comes ultimately from Latin dominus ‘lord, master’. Derived from this was dominium ‘property’ (source of English dominion), which in postclassical times became dominiō or domniō, meaning ‘lord’s tower’.

In Old French this became donjon, the term for a ‘castle keep’, and eventually, by extension, a ‘secure (underground) cell’. English acquired the package in the 14th century, but in common usage has retained only the latter sense, in the adapted Middle English spelling (although the original Old French form remains in use as a technical term for a ‘castle keep’).
=> dame, danger, demesne, dominion, dominate
duodenum: duodenum: [14] The term duodenum, for the first part of the small intestine, originated as a measure of length. It comes from the medieval Latin phrase intestinum duodēnum digitōrum ‘intestine of twelve digits’ – that is, twelve finger-breadths long, or just over 20 centimetres. Latin duodēnī meant literally ‘twelve each’; it was a derivative of duodecim ‘twelve’ (source also of English dozen).
=> dozen
dupe: dupe: [17] English borrowed dupe from French, where it was probably originally a humorous application of a dialect word for a ‘hoopoe’, an extravagantly crested bird whose flamboyant appearance seems to have made it the butt of jokes. It presumably represents ultimately an alteration of Old French huppe ‘hoopoe’, sometimes explained as being a conflation of de huppe ‘of the hoopoe’. (English hoopoe [17] is an alteration of an earlier hoop, which came from Old French huppe; its ultimate source was Latin upupa, which originated as an imitation of the bird’s cry.)
=> hoopoe
duple: duple: see double
duplicate: duplicate: [15] Like its close relative double, duplicate comes ultimately from Latin duplus ‘two-fold’, a compound adjective based on Latin duo ‘two’ and an Indo-European element *plwhich denoted ‘folding’ (it is present also in English fold and ply). English acquired this in the 16th century, and its synonym duplex (based on the extended stem *plic-) in the 19th century. In Latin, duplus formed the basis of a verb duplicāre ‘make twofold, double’, from whose past participle English gets duplicate, while duplex has given us duplicity [15].
=> double, duplicity, fold, ply, two
duress: duress: [14] Etymologically, duress means literally ‘hardness’, and that was what it was used for when English first acquired it. It comes via Old French duresse from Latin dūritia, a derivative of the adjective dūrus ‘hard’ (from which English gets during). The current sense ‘constraint’ developed during the 15th century.
=> during, endure
during: during: [14] During, like durable [14], durance [15], duration [14], duress, and endure [14], comes ultimately from the Latin adjective dūrus ‘hard’. This goes back to an earlier *drūros, which is related to Irish dron ‘solid’, Lithuanian drūtas ‘strong, solid’, and Sanskrit dāruna- ‘strong, hard’, and links with Irish daur ‘oak’ (a possible relative of druid) and Greek drus ‘oak’ suggest that its original underlying meaning was ‘oak wood’, from which ‘hard’ developed as a metaphorical extension.

The Latin verb dūrāre meant originally literally ‘harden’, but this widened (perhaps with memories of an underlying sense ‘strong, resilient’) to ‘continue in existence, last’. It is these notions of ‘continuance’, ‘strength’, and ‘perseverance’ that emerge in different proportions in durable, duration, and endure, and indeed in during, which is a translation of Old French durant, the present participle of durer ‘last’: phrases such as ‘during the day’ mean etymologically ‘as long as the day lasts’. Durance, an archaic term for ‘imprisonment’, originally denoted ‘length of sentence’, and so is virtually equivalent to the modern ‘for the duration’.
=> durable, duration, duress, endure
dusk: dusk: [OE] In Anglo-Saxon times, dusk was an adjective meaning ‘dark in colour’ (a sense preserved today in the derived adjective dusky [16]). Its modern noun use ‘twilight’ is not recorded until as recently as the early 17th century. The Old English form of the word was dox, which was descended from the same ultimate Indo-European ancestor as Latin fuscus ‘dark’ (source of English obfuscate [16]).
=> dun, obfuscale
dust: dust: [OE] The notion ultimately underlying dust seems to be that of ‘smoke’ or ‘vapour’. It goes back to a prehistoric Indo-European base *dheu-, which also produced Latin fūmus and Sanskrit dhūma- ‘smoke’. A Germanic descendant of this, *dunstu-, picks up the idea of a cloud of fine particles being blown about like smoke, and is the basis of Norwegian dust ‘dust’ and duft ‘finely ground grain’, German duft ‘fragrance’ (from an earlier Middle High German tuft ‘vapour, dew’), and English dust.
duty: duty: [13] Duty comes from Anglo-Norman dueté. This was a derivative of Old French deu ‘owed’ (source of English due [13]), which in turn came from Latin dēbitus, past participle of dēbēre ‘owe’ and source of English debit and debt. (Latin dēbēre was originally a compound verb formed from the prefix dē- ‘away’ and habēre ‘have’, literally ‘have away’, that is ‘keep in one’s possession what belongs to someone else’.) So etymologically one’s duty is what one ‘owes’ to others.
=> debit, debt, due
educate: educate: [15] To educate people is literally to ‘lead them out’. The word comes from the past participle of Latin ēducāre, which meant ‘bring up, rear’ as well as more specifically ‘educate’. It was related to ēdūcere ‘lead out’ (source of English educe [15]), a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and dūcere ‘lead’ (source of English duct, duke, and a whole host of derivatives such as deduce and seduce).
=> conduct, deduce, duct, duke, educe, produce, seduce
endure: endure: see during
exodus: exodus: see period
fiduciary: fiduciary: see faith
gradual: gradual: [16] Latin grādus ‘step’ has been a remarkably prolific source of English words. Beside grade [16] itself, it has contributed the derivatives gradation [16], gradient [19], gradual (from medieval Latin graduālis, literally ‘proceeding by steps’), graduate [15], and retrograde [14]. The derived verb gradī ‘walk, go’ has produced ingredient, and its past participial stem gress- has given, among others, aggression, congress, digress [16], progress [15], and transgress [16].

And degrade and degree are of the same parentage, the latter filtered through Old French. The origins of Latin grādus itself are not known.
=> aggression, congress, degrade, degree, digress, grade, gradient, ingredient, progress, transgress
individual: individual: [15] To begin with, individual retained in English its ancestral meaning ‘not able to be divided’: ‘in the name of the holy and individual Trinity’. Richard Whitbourne, Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland 1623. It was borrowed from medieval Latin indīviduālis, a derivative of Latin indīviduus ‘not divisible’, which in turn was based on dīviduus, a derivative of the verb dīvidere ‘divide’. The semantic move from ‘not divisible’ to ‘single, separate’ took place in the 17th century. (English acquired the formally parallel indivisible, incidentally, in the 14th century.)
=> divide
indulge: indulge: [17] The -dulg- of indulge may be related to such words as Greek dolikhós and Russian dólgij, meaning ‘long’. In that case Latin indulgēre, the immediate source of the English word, may to begin with have signified ‘allow long enough for’. Its only recorded senses, however, are the same as those of modern English indulge.
industry: industry: [15] Industry comes, partly via Old French industrie, from Latin industria, which meant ‘quality of being hard-working, diligence’. This was a derivative of the adjective industrius ‘diligent’, which went back to an Old Latin indostruus, formed from the prefix indu- ‘in’ (see INDIGENOUS) and the element -struus (a relative of the verb struere ‘build’, from which English gets construct, destroy, etc).
=> construct, destroy, structure
introduce: introduce: [16] Introduce means etymologically ‘lead inside’. It was borrowed from Latin intrōdūcere ‘lead in’, a compound verb formed from the prefix intrō- ‘in, inside’ and dūcere ‘lead’ (source of English duct, duke, educate, produce, etc). Of its main secondary meanings, ‘use for the first time, originate’ emerged in Latin but ‘make known personally to others’ seems to have been a later development.
=> duct, duke, educate, produce
module: module: see model
nodule: nodule: see noose