quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- hippopotamus
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[hippopotamus 词源字典] - hippopotamus: [16] Etymologically, a hippopotamus is a ‘river horse’. The word comes, via Latin, from late Greek hippopótamos, a lexicalization of an earlier phrase híppos ho potámios, literally ‘horse of the river’. Other English descendants of híppos (a relative of Latin equus ‘horse’) include hippodrome [16], from a Greek compound that meant originally ‘horse-race’ (-drome occurs also in aerodrome and dromedary), and the name Philip, literally ‘lover of horses’. The abbreviation hippo, incidentally, dates from the mid-19th century.
=> equine, hippodrome[hippopotamus etymology, hippopotamus origin, 英语词源] - hippopotamus (n.)
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- 1560s, from Late Latin hippopotamus, from Greek hippopotamus "riverhorse" (earlier ho hippos ho potamios "the horse of the river"), from hippos "horse" (see equine) + potamos "river, rushing water" (see potamo-). Replaced Middle English ypotame (c. 1300), which is from the same source but via Old French. Glossed in Old English as sæhengest.
Ypotamos comen flyngynge. ... Grete bestes and griselich ["Kyng Alisaunder," c. 1300]