quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- expect[expect 词源字典]
- expect: [16] Someone who expects something literally ‘looks out’ for it. The word comes from Latin expectāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and spectāre ‘look’ (source of English spectacle, spectre, spectrum, and speculate). Already in Latin the literal ‘look out’ had shifted metaphorically to ‘look forward to, anticipate’ and ‘await’, meanings adopted wholesale by English (‘await’ has since been dropped).
=> espionage, spectacle, speculate, spy[expect etymology, expect origin, 英语词源] - expect (v.)
- 1550s, "wait, defer action," from Latin expectare/exspectare "await, look out for; desire, hope, long for, anticipate; look for with anticipation," from ex- "thoroughly" (see ex-) + spectare "to look," frequentative of specere "to look at" (see scope (n.1)).
Figurative sense of "anticipate, look forward to" developed in Latin and is attested in English from c. 1600. Also from c. 1600 as "regard as about to happen." Meaning "count upon (to do something), trust or rely on" is from 1630s. Used since 1817 as a euphemism for "be pregnant." In the sense "suppose, reckon, suspect," it is attested from 1640s but was regarded as a New England provincialism. Related: Expected; expecting.